Search Engines/IP restrictions/policy changes

[Clayton Lambert]

I think it is important that webhosters feel singled out in this respect.
Webhosters that burn thru huge portions of IP address space on relatively
few physical servers are not being fair to those Webhosters that are
attempting to conserve IP address space.  It is important to point out
however, that all 'service providers' be held to the same standard.
AppService providers and managed service (including security services)
providers should be required to comply with this policy as well.

Maybe an accepted standard ratio of physical devices per IP address should
be established in each of the service provider scenarios.  Such as: ISP's  a
4-25 to 1 ratio of users to IP addresses?  and something similar for ASP's
and such.

It is very important that search engines do not dictate the standard on
this.  Search engines could be configured to be just as effective with
hostheaders and with IP addresses.

one other thing, the policy CLEARLY indicates that exceptions are allowed,
but that (rightfully so) they are reviewed on a per-case basis. There are
known protocols that are not compatible with HTTP1.1 hostheaders.  these
exceptions must be documented.
I do not see a problem with requiring the documentation of these exceptions.
It is a small price to pay for the VERIFICATION of efficient IP address
utilization.  It is as if the webhosting companies want everything handed to
them.  They do not appear to take the need for efficient utilization
seriously.  This attitude needs to change.  The finite amount of addressable
space can be consumed in a short period of time if we would allow hundreds
of IPs to be consumed for each webhosting server.  We cannot allow this to
occur.

Clayton Lambert
Exodus Communications

-----Original Message-----
From: policy-request at arin.net [mailto:policy-request at arin.net]On Behalf
Of Charles Scott
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2000 11:17 AM
To: policy at arin.net
Subject: RE: Search Engines/IP restrictions/policy changes



On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Torsey, Brian wrote:

> As for the policy on IP addresses and Virtual Web hosting ... it did not
> come out of the blue.
>
> Most people I know saw it coming for about a year. It just went from
> "strongly advised against" to "against policy".

Brian:
  Agreed that this policy didn't come "out of the blue". I think what
caught most everyone off guard was that it was such a strong policy with
so little mention of exceptions, dispite the fact that there had been
some discussions that exceptions would be necessary.
  I also think that a strict implimentation of the policy with minimal
room for exceptions would leave Web hosting operations feeling singled out
since there's significant other areas where efficiency can be improved.
  Perhaps what this comes down to is how it's implimented. I wonder if
anyone's had any experience yet dealing with this policy in a real
allocation request? It would also be interesting to hear if anyone has had
experience yet with any providers invoking this policy for downstream Web
providers.

Chuck Scott