Need for numbers related to Hosting

[Bill Van Emburg]

I, too, am very troubled by the lack of evidence that this policy will
actually improve the situation at all.  While I do not challenge Mr.
Lambert's statement that "webhosting companies do indeed consume the 
lions share of IP address space while operating a relatively small
percentage of the physical devices that we support," I would put forth
that Exodus is not the Internet, and should not be considered indicative
of the Internet as a whole.  What's more, this fact does not indicate
anything about whether this is a bad thing for IP conservation, or
whether this change in policy will have a significant, positive impact. 
After all, aren't the majority of Exodus' customer web hosters? 
Wouldn't one expect web hosters to consume large numbers of IP
addresses, relative to the number of physical machines.  That fact is
not, by definition, a problem!  (Of course, it is also not, by
definition, NOT a problem....  ;-)

Further, any assessment of the likely impact of this policy on IP
conservation would have to include an assessment of rate of depletion,
grouped by type of use.  The most important question right now is, "who
is currently being assigned IPv4 addresses at the greatest rate?"  That
will tell us where to start enacting tougher policies.

Note that I am NOT against the current ARIN recommendation to use
name-based hosting wherever feasible.  I believe that all organizations
should follow this policy, simply as a matter of avoiding waste.
-- 

				     -- Bill Van Emburg
				     	Quadrix Solutions, Inc.
Phone: 732-235-2335, x206		(mailto:bve at quadrix.com)
Fax:   732-235-2336			(http://quadrix.com)
		The eBusiness Solutions Company


Bill Darte wrote:
> 
> The point was not to nit pick your verbage, but to express my concern for
> recommending policy to the BoT based upon analysis devoid of fact which
> fairly represents the problem and the urgency of remedy.  We can look at the
> overall depletion of the v4 address space and speculate on its demise and
> consequences.  I have seen absolutely no numbers associated with this
> problem that suggests a magnitude and trend.
> Bill Darte
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Clayton Lambert [mailto:Clay at exodus.net]
> > Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 11:45 AM
> > To: 'Bill Darte'; vwp at arin.net
> > Subject: RE: Been quiet in here...
> >
> >
> > I was generalizing, not being vague.  It is an interesting point that
> > relates to this discussion.  I don't think the comment
> > warrented an overly
> > deep analysis.  I am not at liberty to disclose the detailed
> > demographics of
> > our Customers, but the trend is clear (for me, as the
> > maintainer within my
> > company) that webhosting companies do indeed consume the
> > lions share of IP
> > address space while operating a relatively small percentage
> > of the physical
> > devices that we support.
> >
> > -Clay
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-vwp at arin.net [mailto:owner-vwp at arin.net]On Behalf Of Bill
> > Darte
> > Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 7:00 AM
> > To: 'Clayton Lambert'; vwp at arin.net
> > Subject: RE: Been quiet in here...
> >
> >
> > Not to be contentious, but "a small percentage of our customer use the
> > overwhelmingly largeset amount of address space" IS very vague.
> > I'm all for conservation, I am willing to support policy that enforces
> > conservation when need exists, but I am unwilling to support
> > policy that is
> > based upon these anecdotal, rather than factual references.
> > Bill Darte
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Clayton Lambert [mailto:Clay at exodus.net]
> > > Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 4:48 PM
> > > To: 'Bill Darte'; 'Alec H. Peterson'; vwp at arin.net
> > > Subject: RE: Been quiet in here...
> > >
> > >
> > > it is more than a vague notion.  It is a fact...
> > >
> > > A small percentage of our Customers use the overwhelmingly
> > > largest amounts
> > > of address space.
> > >
> > > This policy should not scare web-hosters.  I think that
> > > webhosters should
> > > make the attempt to be efficient with their use of address
> > > space.  We have
> > > hammered our name-based hosting servers and we have not seen
> > > an appreciable
> > > drop in performance compared to the same servers running IP
> > > based hosting.
> > > If there is a valid reason for a service provider (any
> > > service, not just
> > > webhosters) to use IP-based hosting, I think it is not
> > > unreasonable to have
> > > them provide documentation to support that requirement.
> > > Accountability
> > > isn't something that is necessarily bad.
> > >
> > > -Clayton Lambert
> > > Exodus Communications
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-vwp at arin.net [mailto:owner-vwp at arin.net]On
> > Behalf Of Bill
> > > Darte
> > > Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 1:24 PM
> > > To: 'Alec H. Peterson'; vwp at arin.net
> > > Subject: RE: Been quiet in here...
> > >
> > >
> > > I have seen no evidence that there is a problem. No scope, no
> > > magnitude, no
> > > trends, just a vague notion that it is wasting "lots" of addresses.
> > > Bill Darte
> > > AC