RIPE NCC Regional Meeting Doha Minutes

RIPE NCC Regional Meeting Doha Minutes

Monday, 19 November 2007

Scribe: Nick Hyrka, RIPE NCC

Opening Plenary for the RIPE NCC Regional Meeting Qatar and MENOG 2

Keynote: Welcome

Fahad AlShirawi, 2Connect, Bahrain

Fahad greeted attendees at the second MENOG meeting. He noted how important the involvement of the network operators was to the development of MENOG and how it will have a tremendous impact in the Middle East and within the industry. He said that building networks with the cooperation of all participating individuals and organisations would positively affect the development of the industry in the region. 'Look beyond the financial implications of companies and consider the implications of the region, Fahad said. 'It's not only about networks, it's about people. And that is what makes a difference.'

He introduced Salman Almannai, Qatar Telecom Co. (Qtel) q.s.c.

Salman welcomed everyone to the RIPE NCC Regional Meeting and MENOG 2.

Fahad thanked Salman and Qtel and acknowledged all participating sponsors, including the RIPE NCC for its administrative help in producing the meetings as well as participating as a platinum sponsor to MENOG 2.

Salman introduced Paul Rendek, Head of External Relations and Communications, RIPE NCC.

Paul thanked everyone and welcomed them to the combined meetings. He noted the amount of effort and resources that it takes to produce the meetings, mentioning specifically the support provided by the MENOG Program Committee and thanked them. He welcomed all attendees to the RIPE NCC Regional Meeting, noting past Regional Meetings that were held in the Middle East: Dubai, Bahrain, and in Doha. He also mentioned the successful RIPE NCC Regional Meetings that have been held in Moscow.

Paul introduced Olaf Kolkman of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and NLnet Labs as the keynote speaker.

Keynote: 'The IETF Standards Process and DNSSEC' Olaf Kolkman (NLnet Labs)

Olaf's presentation explained the mission of the IETF, its standards, role and scope and overview of the organisation. It also noted related organisations, such as The Internet Society (ISOC) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), meeting participants and their geographical locations, and income and expenses of the IETF.

Question: How do find and participate in the IETF Working Groups?

Olaf: It's easy. Go online, type www.ietf.org into a web browser, and then look for the 'IETF Working Groups' link. The connecting page explains the scope of the specific working groups with related documents and the mailing addresses for responding to them.

Question: How do you create a new Working Group?

Olaf: It would depend on how large the work item is. It is important to first locate people interested in the same idea, find an IETF area director, and hold a 'Birds of a Feather' (BoF) meeting. It is a complicated process but there is an RFC document that explains it. Once you find the area director and hold the BoF, you can discuss the issue at hand, outline the problems and create possible solutions. But you must be very careful and be specific in your research. There must be a sufficient number of players interested in solving the problem. It's best to find an experienced IETF member to help you.

Question: Where is the IETF hosted?

Olaf: The IETF is hosted in various places around the globe three times a year. Most meetings are held in North America, although one is usually held in Asia and one in Europe. But the IETF will go wherever the participants are. If there is sufficient interest in specific work, there will be support provided.

Olaf began the second part of his presentation, 'DNSSEC and a case study of protocol development problems'. The presentation included an explanation of DNS architecture, DNSSEC protection, DNSSEC history, development of DNSSEC bis and DNSSEC deployment.

Question: How can you unblock DNS?

Olaf: I believe that you're referring to spam and blacklists. Check with the provider who hosts the server where the spam originated. This is not a DNS issue but more of an anti-spam issue.

Question: Is there a published procedure for running a ccTLD DNS server?

Olaf: I do not know of any public document that states how to do this for a ccTLD. But there are related RFCs and documents to check. Two sites to visit are www.dnssecdeployment.org and www.dnssec.net for more information.

If you are a TLD registry and want to sign your zone, you can also contact the CENTr organisation or send them an e-mail. Additionally, you can mail the Swedish registry for their advice.

Randy Bush, Internet Initiative Japan: For DNSSEC, it is the same for any zone. TLD is not special in this regard. For technical aspects, you can use any document. For social and political aspects, this is more culture-based. For this, you need to check your government contacts.

The combined presentations given by Olaf can be found at:

http://www.menog.net/meetings/menog2/presentations/keynote-olaf-kolkman-ietf.pdf

The keynote section of the meetings ended at 15:40.

The RIPE NCC Regional Meeting began at 16:10.

1. RIPE NCC Activities and Services

Speaker: Axel Pawlik, Managing Director, RIPE NCC

Axel presented on the RIPE NCC's disaster preparedness plan, deploying the business continuity plan, the organisational changes at the RIPE NCC, shifts in project focus and the RIPE NCC's vision and strategy. He also spoke about strategic positioning (related to IPv4 and IPv6 issues and the transfer of IP address blocks), membership and regional outreach planning, government interaction and 'Enhanced Cooperation' (including RIPE NCC external relations staffing and public relations planning, Internet Governance Forum (IGF) participation), the RIPE NCC's Customer Services Department's scope and project planning, the RIPE NCC's resource reclamation project, RIPE Database improvements, RIPE NCC Training Services activities and E-Learning Centre, and organisational planning for 2008.

This presentation can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/meetings/regional/doha-2007/presentations/axel-pawlik-ncc-update.pdf

2. Statistics and Policy Update

Speaker: Filiz Yilmaz, RIPE NCC Filiz presented the RIPE NCC's statistics regarding Internet number resources (IPv4 and IPv6), including allocations in the Middle East region, and on policy issues from the RIPE region and worldwide. This presentation included recent policy issues regarding IPv4 address space exhaustion.

This presentation can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/meetings/regional/doha-2007/presentations/filiz-yilmaz-policy-update.pdf

3. Certification Report

Speaker: Andrew de la Haye, RIPE NCC

Andrew spoke on the review of IP resource exhaustion, transfer of Internet resources, the consideration of resource certificates, address and routing security, data quality and enhanced resource registration, benefits of certification, proposed work on certification of resources and the work completed by the RIPE NCC on this project, the RIPE Certification Task Force, its scope and project timelines.

This presentation can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/meetings/regional/doha-2007/presentations/andrew-de-la-haye-certification.pdf

4. RIPE NCC Information Services Update

Speaker: Mark Dranse, RIPE NCC

Mark spoke on the suite of Information Services offered by the RIPE NCC, including Test Traffic Measurements (TTM), Domain Name System Monitoring (DNSMON), Routing Information Service (RIS) and Hostcount. He provided the scope of the services and the benefits they bring to the users.

This presentation can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/meetings/regional/doha-2007/presentations/mark-dranse-information-services.pdf

5. K-root Update

Speaker: Andrei Robechevsky, RIPE NCC

Andrei spoke on the root server system and K-root, the root server run by the RIPE NCC since 1987. K-root is one of thirteen root servers around the world. The presentation also showed how anycast technology has supported the functionality of the root server system.

This presentation can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/meetings/regional/doha-2007/presentations/andrei-robachevsky-k-root.pdf

There were no questions for the RIPE NCC Regional Meeting session presenters.

The RIPE NCC Regional Meeting ended at 17:55.