Comments on Name Based Virtualk Hosting Policy Recommendation

[Bill Darte]

Listen folks, Kevin's statement below is totally accurate....
Again for those who have missed this in the past.... 
ARIN will not supply a technical justification list that is exhaustive
because this list doesn't exist.  When the policy was originally proffered
it was met with a hailstorm of protest which referenced many technical
reasons why the policy could not be comprehensively met.  Those reasons
exist in the archives of this listserver.  ARIN respected the protest and
its inability to identify all the possible reasons, so it suspended the
policy and is in the process of revising that policy. (sorry about the
history lesson).

The policy as suggested...
           When an ISP submits a request for IP address space to be used    
           for IP-based web hosting, they will supply technical             
           justification for this practice. ARIN will collect this data for 
           review of the policy in light of operational experience.....

                                                                         
says that an ISP will (meaning ARIN's Registration process will require) a
technical (that is a reason founded in technology) for requesting IP address
space to be used for IP-based web hosting.  This information gathering will
be used to document the reasons that ISP feel unable to to do name-based
virtual web hosting.  These reasons in generic form may be (as was mentioned
in another post) analyzed and refuted or the Internet community or as a
basis for providing work-arounds or whatever..... ARIN will use the reasons
and the frequency of occurrence and the number of IP addresses involved,
and/or other information to assess whether this IS a really big problem
which requires a more strict policy or not, or somewhere in between, or even
ignoring the whole issue in the future.

Regardless of that.  ARIN's above policy has as its only actions specified,
the collection and analysis of the technical justifications presented from
ISPs for doing IP-based web hosting.  This specified collection policy will
have no impact on the current request for IP address space.  It will have no
impact on past allocations nor on future allocations except as the
information over time would indicate the need for a CHANGE in policy.

Now, relative to "because" as a technical justification.  It would be my
council as a member of the AC that no such justification would be accepted.
Rather, if this was the best 'technical' justification that an ISP could
come up with, then it would be rendered as a more generic "without technical
justification" notation in the records.  This decision of what to capture
and how, has not been decided because there is no policy in place to require
it.  That's what the policy in current form hopes to achieve.  In any case,
even a reason which might appear to the registration authorities as lacking
technical justification would NOT block an allocation.

Now all this would make for a rather explicit but verbose policy statement.
Even then, those who see everything ARIN does as sinister and intent upon
ruining their business would find fault.

If you have specific and succinct language which you think modifies the
policy to reflect this information...well, please offer it as that's what
this forum is trying to achieve.... 

Bill Darte
ARIN AC

> Yes, you've missed the bus.  The policy has nothing to do 
> with existing
> allocations.  It doesn't even restrict future allocations.  
> ARIN simply
> wants to gather more information about a potential problem.
> 
> Kevin
> 
>