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 RIPE
NCC Annual Report 2002 |
Document ID: ripe-287
Date: 14 July 2003
Table of Contents
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1. Foreword
2002 marks the tenth anniversary of the RIPE NCC and the fifth year of
its existence as a legal entity. This presents an excellent moment for
reflection.
Let us begin by reminding ourselves that the RIPE NCC was assembled from
scratch and has grown over the years through the dedication and professionalism
of its staff and the support and guidance from its members. The Internet
community at large owes a big thanks to all those involved.
It is also good to note that after having suffered some growing pains
in previous years, the quality of the RIPE NCC service provision showed
measurable improvement over 2002 and is back on track again.
However, 2002 did not just bring good news. The downturn of the telecommunications
industry did not pass by unnoticed. The RIPE NCC suffered an operational
loss of more than two million euros. Due to the healthy financial position
built in the past years, this will not immediately endanger the financial
stability of the RIPE NCC. It does, however, give us a warning that the
RIPE NCC operates in a dynamic environment where constant evolution is
necessary to stay alive.
To collect some concrete input to this evolutionary process the RIPE
NCC commissioned KPMG Consulting to conduct an independent member and
stakeholder survey during the second half of 2002. Based on the results
of this survey and in close interaction with the members and stakeholders,
the RIPE NCC Executive Board and management will work in 2003 on concrete
proposals to further improve the operational quality and organisational
structure of the RIPE NCC.
I would like to use this opportunity to welcome LACNIC as an officially
recognised Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for the Latin American and
Caribbean region. Another notable event was the ICANN evaluation and reform
process started by ICANN early in 2002. The RIRs have worked closely together
to participate in this process. This has resulted in a much better understanding
of each other’s positions at the end of the year. Hopefully the negotiations
between ICANN and the RIRs can finally be concluded in 2003 to the satisfaction
of all parties.
Kees Neggers
Executive Board Chair
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Kees Neggers
Executive Board Chair
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2. Summary 2002
The year 2002 has focused around continued improvement to the core services
of the RIPE NCC, the realisation of the changes in the global market,
and intense dialogue with external partners in the Internet industry.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) reform
issue was centre stage at the beginning of the year. In February, ICANN’s
CEO, Stuart Lynn, introduced a reform proposal with the statement that
ICANN was not functioning as it should. He suggested a number of possible
changes that were seen as highly controversial to the RIPE community.
As a result, several contributions and counter proposals were collectively
brought forward by the RIRs.
In addition, the RIPE NCC co-ordinated with the other Regional Internet
Registries (RIRs) in contributing to the discussion at various forums.
The process of ICANN reform has not yet come to a close, and it remains
to be seen if and how the RIRs' suggestions will be incorporated by ICANN.
The second prominent issue of 2002 was unique for the RIPE NCC: In the
course of the year it became clear that the income of the RIPE NCC Association
would be considerably less than originally envisaged. This was caused
mainly by the pronounced slowdown of the Internet economy and, as a result,
a significantly decelerated registration of new members.
By design, the RIPE NCC has sufficient reserves to cushion such financial
effects. While all available measures were taken to ensure delivery of
service at the lowest operational cost, it became clear that the services
and activities expected from the association put limits on the flexibility
of possible reactions.
On the positive side, the ensuing discussions coupled with the results
of the commissioned RIPE NCC 2002 Member and Stakeholder Survey have produced
a number of valuable suggestions. We were pleased to report that service
level issues raised in the survey had been addressed by the RIPE NCC,
as outlined in the RIPE NCC 2002 Activity Plan. During 2002, there was
a significant improvement in service levels, especially in response times
within Registration Services. The measures taken earlier, as well as keen
support efforts for the core services, have taken root and have shown
strong results.
In particular, interfaces with the RIPE NCC services, be it in the registration
or database areas, have received significant attention. Towards the end
of the year, this culminated in the public beta testing of the LIR Portal.
This service gives LIRs the ability to access their own registry data
and make queries and updates on the RIPE NCC web pages. We expect this
effort to increase users' access to reliable and secure self-service and
decrease the number of requests sent to the RIPE NCC Hostmasters.
As the year 2002 comes to a close, I feel strongly that the RIPE NCC,
thanks to its dedicated staff and supportive membership, has made good
progress. The RIPE NCC has shown its adaptability to the changing needs
of the Internet even in challenging times by providing a steady and responsive
service to its membership.
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Outlook 2003
The coming year will be a year of transformation for the RIPE NCC. The
results of the RIPE NCC 2002 Member and Stakeholder Survey have delivered
a great deal of input from the membership and stakeholders. The results
will be reviewed and analysed in order to yield the necessary changes
and improvements to service delivery. During the RIPE 44 Meeting, we will
give a first presentation of results. This will be followed by additional
analysis and planning sessions to address key issues. Pivotal importance
will be given to community dialogue before deciding possible actions to
take, in order to ensure a result that fully reflects the membership’s
expectations.
Further, in March 2003, a new CEO will head ICANN. Personnel changes
at this level always come with opportunities and apprehensions. It will
be interesting to see how the ICANN Executive Search Committee's choice
will influence the relationship between the RIRs and ICANN. In this arena,
we will continue to rely strongly on our members and the Internet community
at large to show their support of the long-standing bottom-up, industry
self-regulatory process. This is essential given governments' increased
concern for security and reliability on the Internet.
This year has clearly shown us that the current set-ups of RIPE and
the RIPE NCC have their strengths by design but also exhibit weaknesses.
Foremost in our goals is service to our membership and to the RIPE community.
We expect that during the coming months we will, together with the Executive
Board, enter into a discussion with the membership of the RIPE NCC Association
on how to structurally improve in order to remain stable and reliable
to suit the current environment.
The RIPE NCC turned ten this year. It has grown to become an integral
part of the Internet structure with broad industry recognition. It has
faced, and competently addressed, changes of varying magnitude during
its ten years. The RIPE NCC staff, Executive Board, members and community
must remain focused and resilient to take on future industry fluctuations
and challenges.
Axel Pawlik
Managing Director
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Axel Pawlik
Managing Director
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3. What is the RIPE NCC?
The RIPE NCC is one of four Regional Internet Registries existing today.
It provides services to members in 91 countries out of a total of 109
countries in its service region. This region incorporates Europe, the
Middle East, Central Asia and African countries located north of the equator.
A detailed map of the RIPE NCC service region can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/region-maps/
The mission of the RIPE NCC is to perform activities for the benefit of
the membership, primarily activities that the members need to organise
as a group, although they may be competing with each other in other areas.
While an activity may result in services being provided to an individual
member, performing the activity as a whole must benefit the RIPE NCC membership
as a group. Membership is open to anyone using the RIPE NCC services.
The activities and services of the RIPE NCC are defined, performed, discussed
and evaluated in an open manner. In all of its activities, the RIPE NCC
observes strict neutrality and impartiality in regard to individual members.
Role
 The
core activity of the RIPE NCC is to act as the RIR in its service region,
providingglobal Internet resources and related services (IPv4, IPv6 and
ASN). The RIPE NCC also provides services for the benefit of the Internet
community at large, including the development and maintenance of the RIPE
Whois Database. Other activities include administrative support for the
RIPE community and the development of innovative services and outreach
activities with governments and other industry-related organisations.
All activities and projects are described in the annual RIPE NCC Activity
Plan and budget that is approved by the membership. The “RIPE NCC
Activities and Expenditures 2002” can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ap2002.html
Structure
The organisational structure of the RIPE NCC consists of:
- Members who vote on issues during the annual General Meeting and
whoprovide general input through participation in RIPE.
- The Executive Board as appointed by the RIPE NCC membership.
- The RIPE NCC staff.
The RIPE NCC Executive Board
From left to right: Kees Neggers, Frode Greisen, Manfredo Miserocchi,
János Zsakó, and Daniele Bovio.
The RIPE NCC Executive Board includes individuals with expertise
in the Internet community and represents the membership and the RIPE NCC
service region as a whole. The Executive Board members in 2002 were Daniele
Bovio (Secretary - since November 2002); Frode Greisen (ICANN Liaison);
Kees Neggers (Chair); Nigel Titley (Secretary - until November 2002);
and János Zsakó (Treasurer). The terms of both Kees Neggers
and Nigel Titley expired in 2002. The members at the annual General Meeting
of 29 Ocotober 2002 elected Kees Neggers and Manfredo Miserocchi (member)
to the RIPE NCC Executive Board.
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4. Membership Report
In 2002, 530 members applied for membership of the RIPE NCC as compared
to 555 applications in 2001. Due to the increasing number of mergers,
closures and the non-payment of new applicants, the net growth has only
reached 147 members. This is a considerable decline from previous years.
In parallel, the RIPE NCC has seen a shift in the category size of the
membership. The total number of medium and large members has increased,
now comprising a total of almost 25% of all members. The first few months
of 2002 witnessed a slow growth and, in some months, even a decline in
the membership. But in Q3 and Q4 the number of new members significantly
increased. In the final quarter of 2002, there was a growth rate of one
to two members per day.
For 2003 the budget shows a zero membership growth. We anticipate the
number of new members will equal the number of members that discontinue
their membership.
The table (right) reflects the origin of the new members. This table clearly
reflects the economic downturn in Western European countries while Eastern
Europe and especially Russia have seen a growth rate similar to 2001.
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5. Services and Projects
5.1 Registration Services
As a Regional Internet Registry, one of the RIPE NCC’s core activities
is to provide registration services to its members. The overall goal is
to provide the fair distribution of Internet resources required for the
stable and reliable operation of the Internet globally.
The most prominent services supplied by the RIPE NCC are the allocation
and assignment of Internet Protocol (IP) address space, Autonomous System
Numbers (ASNs) and the management of reverse domain name space. These
areas of activity also include auditing and quality control, training
of Local Internet Registries (LIRs) and the production of documentation
to support registration services activities.
In 2002, the RIPE NCC processed a total of 27,607 requests for resources
and related assistance (as compared with a total of 22,127 requests in
2001). In 2002, the RIPE NCC allocated 1.27 /8s (as compared to the 1.51
/8s allocated in 2001). The initial response time for resource requests
and membership applications was quite high at the start of the year. However,
it was reduced to under a week by the summer and stayed below two days
in August. From August to the end of the year, the response time for a
request remained stable at one to two working days.
IPv4
The RIPE NCC continued to allocate address space from the
80/7 IPv4 block received from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
(IANA) in April 2001. It allocated more than twenty million IPv4 addresses.
This is equivalent to about one /8 in ten months. The RIPE NCC also received
a new IPv4 address range, 82/8, from the IANA in November 2002.
IPv6
The RIPE NCC received its second /23 IPv6 allocation from
the IANA in May 2002. A new IPv6 policy was co-ordinated by the RIRs in
their respective regions. As an outcome of the extensive collaboration
between the RIRs and their communities there is now one common IPv6 policy
in place.
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ipv6policy.html
In July 2002, the first allocation under this new policy was made. There
was a rapid growth in the number of IPv6 allocations made after the new
policy was implemented. In November 2002, the RIPE NCC received a third
/23 IPv6 allocation. The ranges allocated to the RIPE NCC at the end of
2002 were:
• 2001:0600::/23
• 2001:0800::/23
• 2001:0A00::/23
In 2002, 70 /32 allocations were made to RIPE NCC members. In total,
140 IPv6 allocations have been made by the RIPE NCC since it started allocating
IPv6 address space in 1999. From the 63 /35 allocations made under the
provisional IPv6 policy agreed in 1999 42 had been expanded to /32, the
new minimum allocation size, by the end of 2002. Fifteen /48s have been
assigned for Internet Exchange Points since the interim policy was decided
in 2001.
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ipv6-policy-ixp.html
No root nameserver operators have requested IPv6 address space. The RIPE
community has a policy allowing root nameservers to receive a block of
the minimum allocation size (currently a /32).
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ipv6-rootservers.html
At the beginning of 2002, the RIPE NCC carried out a survey of members
holding IPv6 allocations in order to observe the progress of IPv6 deployment
within the RIPE NCC service region. Positive support from its members
was received for conducting the survey. The results provided valuable
information to those considering the implemention and deployment of IPv6.
The results of this survey can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/ipv6/ipv6-survey-summary.html
Reverse Delegation
In addition to the automated handling of reverse delegation requests,
human handling is required for about 10% of requests received. These individuals
also deal with user questions concerning reverse delegation. In 2002,
the RIPE NCC delegated 229 /16 domains and 20,541 /24 domains.
During 2002, the RIPE NCC continued to make IPv6 reverse delegations available
within both ip6.int and ip6.arpa. At the end of 2002, 50 /32 delegations
had been made within ip6.arpa. The RIPE NCC made “ns-v6.ripe.net”
available as a secondary nameserver for these domains. Delegation of /36
domains for LIRs whose /35 IPv6 allocations have not been expanded to
/32 remained available. For more information on reverse delegation, see
section 5.3 of this report.
Autonomous System Numbers
In the past year, the RIPE NCC has assigned 1139 AS Numbers to LIRs.
On average, 95 AS Numbers were assigned per month. The RIPE NCC received
a new block of 1024 AS Numbers from the IANA in November 2001. Assignment
from this range, however, began in January 2002. An additional block of
AS Numbers was received from the IANA in November 2002.
Training
An important service delivered to the RIPE NCC membership is the LIR Training
Courses. During 2002, the RIPE NCC provided 61 training courses in 28
countries in the RIPE NCC service region. About 1400 LIR members were
trained in 2002.
The LIR Training Course material is updated monthly to ensure that attendees
are aware of any recent policy changes decided by the RIPE community.
The RIPE NCC introduced a new course in 2002. The DNS Security (DNSSec)
Training Course, aimed at experienced DNS operators, explains how to implement
DNSSec in an operational environment. This course is preparing the way
for the RIPE NCC to provide DNSSec as part of the reverse delegation service
during 2003.
Additionally, two IP request tutorials were given at RIPE Meetings in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Rhodes, Greece. These tutorials contained
basic material selected from the current course material and were open
to all RIPE Meeting participants.
Further information about the RIPE NCC LIR Training Courses can be found
at:
http://www.ripe.net/training/
Countries where LIR Training Courses were held in 2002
Tools and Support for LIR Operations
LIR Portal
The RIPE NCC LIR Portal service allows members to manage their own registry
data and to make queries and updates instantly. This new interface to
RIPE NCC services was made available as a technical beta test during the
RIPE 43 meeting in Rhodes, in September 2002. All information exchanged
is encrypted to ensure security. Features include:
• viewing and editing LIR contact and address information
• viewing billing information
• viewing IP and AS resources
• viewing status of open tickets
• news and events board
The LIR Portal will move from a beta service to a full release service
in January 2003. More details can be found at:
https://lirportal.ripe.net/
More information about publicly available member tools can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/mem-services/tools/
RIPE Community Policy Developments in 2002
The RIPE NCC adheres to Internet address distribution policies developed
by community consensus in the RIPE LIR Working Group (see section 7.0).
Through open discussions at RIPE Meetings and on public mailing lists,
consensus for the following policy changes was reached:
- During 2002, the RIPE community finalised the revision of the IPv4
policy documentation. This resulted in a simpler and more concise document
for IPv4 policy.
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ipv4-policies.html
- In a co-ordinated effort among the RIRs, the RIPE community reached
consensus during the RIPE 42 meeting in Amsterdam on a new policy for
the allocation and assignment of IPv6 address space. The new policy’s
minimum allocation is eight times larger and the qualifying criteria
are more relaxed. The IPv6 Address Allocation and Assignment Policy
is available at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ipv6policy.html
- A proposal for a sub-allocation policy was initially raised during
RIPE 40 in Prague in October 2001. The proposal continued to be evaluated
during 2002. At RIPE 43 in Rhodes in September 2002, the proposal was
accepted by the community and proposed as a draft document for community
review.
- The RIPE NCC has had a procedure for making temporary assignments
to trade shows, fairs and other temporary networks. During 2002, a proposal
for a formal policy for temporary assignments for Internet experiments
was put forward in the APNIC, RIPE and ARIN regions. The proposal was
accepted by the RIPE community at RIPE 43 in Rhodes in September 2002.
The proposal was published as a draft document in November 2002. Following
its acceptance the policy was incorporated into the existing IPv4, IPv6
and ASN policy documents.
- The RIPE NCC renewed all the resource and registration-related policy
documentation during 2002. Revised policy documents were published for
all resources (IPv4, IPv6 and ASN). A new document structure was introduced
that makes it easier to keep the documents up-to-date with future policy
changes.
The RIPE NCC will continue its efforts to keep policy documentation clear
and concise. Policy changes will be reported in an efficient and easily
accessible format.
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5.2 Database Services
One of the main public services provided by the RIPE NCC is the operation
and maintenance of the RIPE Whois Database and the implementation of new
database functionality requested by the RIPE community.
The RIPE Database provides information about address space and autonomous
system number allocations; DNS reverse delegation domains; routing policies;
and contact information. The RIPE Whois Database can be queried at:
whois -h whois.ripe.net or http://www.ripe.net/whois
In 2002, the RIPE Database gradually grew from 1.4 to 1.7 million objects.
The main contributors to this growth remain objects representing IPv4
address allocations and assignments, contact information and DNS reverse
delegation.
There was an increase in query rate that reached 25 queries/second on
a weekly average basis. These queries return on average almost five million
objects per day, more than twice the content of the whole database. The
majority of these queries (70%) are requests for address space assignment
information.
Further Development of the RIPE Database Software
Following requests by the RIPE community, new functionality has been implemented
in the RIPE Database software.
Substantial developments have been made to further improve security in
the RIPE Database. A new authentication scheme based on the MD5 hashing
algorithm was introduced in May 2002. This scheme is more resistant to
password-breaking attacks. More than 40% of all maintainers have already
implemented the new scheme. Another security improvement was phasing out
a weak authentication scheme based on the e-mail address of the user.
Since 15 August 2002 the "MAIL-FROM" authentication scheme is
no longer allowed in the RIPE Database.
At the request of the RIPE community and European CSIRT (Computer Security
Incident Response Team) in particular, an object representing CSIRT (i.e
the IRT object) was introduced to the database. It is now possible to
reference such objects from an address range (e.g. inetnum object) thus
providing information regarding the responsible CSIRT. The RIPE NCC worked
closely together with the community to develop a set of procedures and
related documentation available at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/irt-object.html
Another important feature that was introduced to the RIPE version 3 (RIPEv3)
Database code was an RPSL object library that can also be used in user's
tools. Using the latest version of the library guarantees that the client
is 100% compliant with object format and definitions currently in use
in the RIPE Database. This feature also allows those who run their registries
using the RIPE Database software to easily introduce modifications to
the existing definitions, or even new object types and new attributes.
To reflect new policy development in IPv6, new values of the “status”
attribute for inet6num objects were implemented. Following requests from
the community, new status values for IPv4 address ranges, “LIR-PARTITIONED”,
were introduced to facilitate address management tasks. The new “LIR-PARTITIONED”
policy document is available at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/lir-partitioned.html
Improved User Access to the Whois Database
The RIPE NCC continued to improve user support by deploying intuitive
web-based graphical interfaces to access the Whois Database.
An advanced Whois query interface has been developed and deployed by
the RIPE NCC. The web-based interface helps the user create queries and
provides online help, making even complex queries a simple task.
http://www.ripe.net/perl/whois
A web-based graphical user interface (GUI) for updating the RIPE Whois
Database has been made available to users. It provides a more intuitive
way of creating, editing, updating, or deleting objects in the database.
http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/webupdates.html
An interface supporting “synchronous updates” has been developed
and deployed. The term synchronous updates, or “syncupdates”,
comes from the fact that results of the operation are returned by the
database in the same TCP session. This feature facilitates automation
of database updates by the users. The syncupdate facility is also a basis
for the web-based GUI mentioned above.
http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/syncupdates/
Database Related Projects
The RIPE NCC continued to develop several projects related to the RIPE
Database. The RIPE Database Consistency and Statistics project has been
re-implemented and put into production in January 2002. In the new version
of the software, inconsistency reports can be requested by e-mail using
existing maintainer authentication schemes. These reports aim to help
users keep their information in the database consistent and up-to-date.
A new version of the project also provides extended statistics regarding
content and usage of the database. This information is helpful in understanding
trends and patterns in database usage in order to plan accordingly.
The Routing Registry Consistency Check (RRCC) project has been put into
production. The next steps are to ensure that the software is more portable
to allow its usage as a stand-alone toolset.
During 2002, the RIPE NCC continued to maintain the IRRToolSet software
providing bug fixes and implementing new features as requested by the
community.
More information about database related projects is available at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/index.html#projects
User Support
Throughout 2002 the RIPE NCC continued with its efforts to provide high-quality
user support and to seek improved ways to serve our members.
An important part of this activity is the database helpdesk, RIPE DBM.
To provide better tracking of user requests a ticketing system was deployed
in May 2002. To increase efficiency, an anti-spam filter was put in place
allowing only messages addressed to <ripe-dbm@ripe.net> to be processed.
Another key part of user support is documentation and training. Database
training comprises a significant part of the LIR Training Course. In the
documentation area the “RIPE Database User Manual - Getting Started”
document was published with support from APNIC. This document is the first
part of the User's Manual presenting essential concepts and information
for novice users. Additional content will be added to the User's Manual
in 2003. The RIPE Database Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) is constantly
updated to reflect the most commonly encountered problems.
More information about RIPE Database Services can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/
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5.3 DNS Services
Reverse Delegation
As part of member services, the RIPE NCC provides reverse domain delegations
for the allocated IPv4 and IPv6 address space. This remains the primary
DNS activity carried out by the RIPE NCC.
As well as setting up the reverse DNS zones, the RIPE NCC also monitors
the quality of the reverse nameservers that it delegates and also publishes
statistical reports.
More information about reverse delegation is available at:
http://www.ripe.net/reverse/
Secondary DNS
The secondary DNS server is an important component of the system to ensure
its robustness and stability. At the end of 2002, the RIPE NCC was providing
a stable secondary DNS name service to around 200 country code top-level
and related zones and several other second-level zones, according to the
policy of providing this service to any ccTLD organisation that requested
it.
Starting from Q4 2002, native IPv6 access was added to the DNS services
by the RIPE NCC.
The RIPE NCC is also responsible for the operation of the crucial part
of the DNS infrastructure - one of the thirteen root servers - k.root-servers.net.
Every effort is made to ensure that this service meets the high performance
and security standards required. The recent upgrade of this server was
completed in Q4 2002. The server is located at the London Internet Exchange
(LINX).
Hostcount
Every month since the beginning of 1992 the RIPE Region
Hostcount is performed to indicate the growth in the service region. At
the end of 2002, the amount of hosts registered in the RIPE NCC service
region was almost 16,680,000. This represents an increase of approximately
1,030,000 (6.5%) in 2002.More information about the RIPE Region Hostcount
is available at:
http://www.ripe.net/hostcount/
ccTLDs
In 2002, the RIPE NCC continued to provide a stable secondary DNS to
around 200 country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) and several second
level domains. This service is offered free of charge and upon request
to any country code Top-Level Domain organisation.
Furthermore, in the wake of KPNQwest's bankruptcy, the RIPE NCC agreed
to host “ns.eu.net” on a temporary basis, as this particular
machine provided secondary DNS to 42 ccTLDs at this point in time. It
had therefore to be regarded as important for European, if not global,
Internet infrastructure. In the meantime, some of these ccTLDs moved to
another secondary DNS host - of which 15 found a new home with the RIPE
NCC. The remaining 25 on “ns.eu.net” will hopefully be phased
out during 2003, so that this machine can eventually be retired.
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5.4 Test Traffic Measurements
The Test Traffic Measurement Service (TTM) is a membership service of
the RIPE NCC. It is designed to reliably and impartially measure end-to-end
performance characteristics of the inter-provider Internet. This is achieved
by installing test-boxes at participating sites. These test-boxes send
measurement traffic to each other. From this traffic, packet-losses, delays
and other parameters are determined according to the metrics developed
by the IETF IP Performance Working Group (IPPM-WG). As the RIPE NCC has
an established track record of neutrality and impartiality, it is an ideal
organisation to perform such measurements in a trusted way.
Under the TTM service, any site interested in these measurements can purchase
a test-box with a service contract from the RIPE NCC and install this
box near the border routers. The service contract entitles the test-box
operator to an analysis of the data by the RIPE NCC, software upgrades,
user support and new products based on the data.
It was projected in the RIPE NCC Activity Plan 2002 that the number of
test-boxes would grow by about 50 in 2002. This estimate proved to be
overly optimistic due to changes in the worldwide economic climate latein
2001 as well as some delay in the development of products that translate
the high-quality output into data immediately useful to network operators.
During 2002, a total of 24 test-boxes were sold. The RIPE NCC is currently
discussing the installation of approximately fifteen boxes at three major
network operators in early 2003. It is expected that the number of test-boxes
will see significant growth in 2003.
There has been a continuous improvement of the TTM service. The most
important developments in this area were:
- Installation of a GPS clock often proved to be a problem for ISPs.
However, no alternative was available. This changed in 2002 for the
North American market when clocks using CDMA cell phone signals became
available. These clocks work wherever a CDMA based mobile phone works,
without the need for expensive antenna installations.
- Native IPv6 networks were deployed during 2002. Several such networks
are interested in using TTM for performance measurements and asked for
an IPv6 version of TTM. The TTM code was therefore ported to IPv6 and
installed on three test-boxes in December 2002.
- An interface allowing the user to adjust packet rates and sizes was
added. With this interface, the user can increase traffic in directions
that he considers important while reducing traffic in other directions.
- Web pages showing the paths with exceptionally good or bad performance
were added. Autonomous System level data has also been added to the
output, allowing test-box hosts to easily distinguish between inter-provider
and internal route changes.
- The jitter analysis was completed and resulted in a product that
is offered to the test-box hosts on a regular basis.
Promotion of the TTM service continued in 2002. A TTM introductory talk
was developed and given at various meetings, including the RIPE 42 plenary,
TERENA Conference, GGF5, NANOG-26/ARIN-X, as well as at smaller meetings
and for interested Internet Service Providers (ISPs). A TTM customer questionnaire
was conducted to obtain feedback for improvement.
Analysis of the TTM data continued, both inside and outside the RIPE
NCC. One of the results was a joint paper with the University of Delft
titled “Analysis of End-to-End Delay Measurements in the Internet",
presented at the PAM2002 conference. A second paper is currently being
written and is expected to be published in 2003. Relevant papers and reports
will be available from the RIPE NCC web site. More information about the
RIPE NCC Test Traffic Measurements membership service can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/test-traffic
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5.5 Routing Information Service
The Routing Information Service (RIS) has been established to collect
inter-provider routing information at various points in the Internet infrastructure
in near real-time. The information is time-stamped and stored in a database.
In 2002, the development of the RIS focused on increasing the number
of data collection points, development of additional products based on
the data and user feedback, turning the RIS from an experimental project
into a regular and reliable service and, finally, research for future
expansion of the RIS.
Remote Route Collectors (RRCs) are being used to collect data for the
RIS. In 2002, two more collectors were installed, at Netnod-IX (Stockholm,
SE), and MAE-West (San Jose, USA), bringing the total of RRCs to nine.
The collector at MAE-West is our first presence in North America and provides
a view of the routing table from a North American point of view. The number
of peering sessions increased from approximately 170 in December 2001,
to 214 in December 2002.
In March 2002, a failure in our newly installed RAID array exposed several
weaknesses in the RIS system, which has led to several steps being taken
to make the architecture more scalable and resilient. One major change
was the addition of a faster server that primarily provides RIS services
to our users, while the old RIS server now devotes its resources to the
collection of raw data and its insertion into the RIS Database. Both servers
mirror each other to provide failover in case one of the two breaks down.
We have found that the new set-up has noticeably improved RIS query response
times. Another change is to move some of the CPU intensive tasks from
the servers to the RRC's.
Several new services were introduced throughout 2002 based on user feedback.
New RIS report plots were added prior to the RIPE 43 Meeting in September
2002. New tables for Martians (IPv4 addresses that have been assigned
for special use by IANA but that are nevertheless announced) and BGP Traffic
Hotspots were also made available on the RIS web site to assist the community
in quickly identifying unnecessary route leakage and BGP routes with high
routing churn.
The RIS has also actively supported the RIPE NCC Training Team in the
development of the new advanced course for LIRs, “Welcome to the
Routing Registry for LIRs” in an effort to promote RIS usage.
After feedback at RIPE 43 in Rhodes, it became evident that there was
a strong desire in the community for the collection of IPv6 BGP routing
information. This possibility has since been added. IPv6 peering trials
commenced at AMS-IX in November 2002. We hope to add this additional service
to the remaining collectors by the end of 2003.
At SIGCOMM 2002 and RIPE 43, the need for “BGP Routing Beacons”
(a BGP speaker that announces and withdraws a particular prefix at pre-determined
times) became apparent for studies on route flapping and dampening. Subsequently,
RIS project offered to assist these studies by adding the “Routing
Beacon” functionality to our Remote Route Collectors (RRCs), which
were considered to be ideal for this purpose due to their geographically
dispersed distribution. The Routing Beacons became operational by the
end of September, shortly after RIPE 43. For more information see:
http://www.ris.ripe.net/beacons
During 2002, several university and research groups used the RIS data
for research purposes. Two projects were carried out in collaboration
with the RIPE NCC:
• With Agilent Laboratories. The objective of this project is to
visualise and characterise Border Gateway Protocol (BGP4) behaviour.
• With the “Politehnica” University Timisoara (Romania).
A study on “black holes” or address space seen by an individual
peer in comparison to the RIS as a whole. This resulted in a master's
thesis “Tracking Routing Black Holes with the RIS”, available
at:
http://www.ripe.net/ris/analysis.html
Other research projects were carried out independently of the RIPE NCC
using the raw BGP data collected by the RIS. An overview of published
papers can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/ris/analysis.html
Even though the RIS was not intended to provide raw BGP data for the
research community, it has become clear that making the raw BGP data available
is a useful service for research purposes and for the ISP community in
the long run. This service cannot be easily provided by other organisations.
More information about the RIS can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/ris
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5.6 Deployment of Internet Security Infrastructure (DISI)
The Deployment of Internet Security Infrastructure project (DISI) continued
to focus on the security of the Domain Name System and deployment of DNSSec.
A joint project with NLnet Labs was the development and implementation
of “nsd”, an authoritative only nameserver. The RIPE NCC's contribution
to this project is a DNS server performance and regression test suite
called “DISTEL”.
Within the context of deploying DNSSec, the RIPE NCC focused on operational
issues concerning the rollout. This resulted in two Internet drafts for
the DNSEXT IETF Working Group:
• One draft proposes an optimisation in the denial of existence
of wild-cards, see:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-olaf-dnsext-dnssec-wildcard-optimization-02.txt
• The draft proposes a flag to distinguish between key-signing keys
and zone-signing keys, see:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-dnsext-keyrr-key-signing-flag-06.txt
A workshop, hosted in February to test secure dynamic updates of secure
zones, resulted in a “HOW-TO” for this procedure. See:
http://ops.ietf.org/dns/dynupd/secure-ddns-howto.html
The RIPE NCC continued to work on tools to ease DNSSec operations. The
Net::DNS::SEC Perl library is available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive
Network (CPAN). Various other tools and procedures are currently being
tested internally. The “DNSSec signing appliance” is a pragmatic
approach to enable zone signing in a networked environment while making
direct access to the key material impossible.
The DNSSec courses have matured and were given at Apricot 2002 (March),
at RIPE 43 (September), and in Paris (November) and Amsterdam (December).
This training has now become a part of the regular curriculum and is being
taught by the RIPE NCC Training Team.
More information about DISI can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/disi/
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5.7 ENUM
The RIPE NCC, chosen by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) to act on
its behalf as the Tier 0 registry for ENUM, provides delegation to domains
under the e164.arpa domain.
ENUM is a proposed Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard as
described in RFC 2916 to map telephone numbers according to the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard E.164 into the DNS. The purpose
is to foster the convergence between the Internet and the telephony world
by enabling each system to address the other one.
The RFC 2916 document and the E.164 standard can be found at:
ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2916.txt
http://www.itu.int/rec/recommendation.asp?type=folders&lang=e&parent=T-REC-E.164
The RIPE NCC’s duties, according to the IAB instruction, are to
run the primary name server and to organise the set of secondary name
servers for the e164.arpa domain in a root server class-like manner. IAB
instructions can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/enum/instructions.html
The RIPE NCC also delegates E.164 country codes to requesting entities
(i.e. the Tier 1 registries) after approval by ITU Telecommunication Standardization
Sector - Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (ITU-T TSB). The e164.arpa
domain is the “root” of ENUM in the global DNS. ITU-T TSB handles
delegation request following the ITU-T – Study Group 2 (ITU-T SG2)
Interim Procedures. More information can be found at:
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/inr/enum/procedures.html
The first domain under the e164.arpa domain was delegated on 14 February
2002. In 2002, the RIPE NCC processed 15 requests for delegation of an
E.164 code: thirteen country codes and two non-geographical codes.
More details can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/enum/
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6. RIPE
RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens) is a collaborative forum open
to all parties interested in wide area IP networks. The objective of RIPE
is to ensure the administrative and technical co-ordination necessary
to enable the operation of the Internet. There are no membership requirements
for participation in RIPE; activities are performed on a voluntary basis
and decisions are formed by consensus.
The work of the RIPE community is carried out within a variety of Working
Groups. Each of these RIPE Working Groups has one or more mailing lists
where relevant topics are discussed. The RIPE community is the most important
source of public input for the RIPE NCC and also plays a significant role
in the development of the RIPE NCC annual Activity Plan.
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/about/maillists.html
RIPE Meeting Support
Although two distinct entities, RIPE and the RIPE NCC are highly interdependent
in their operations.
The RIPE NCC is committed to supporting the bottom-up, industry self-regulatory
structure developed by the RIPE community. As an integral part of this
structure the RIPE NCC provides administrative support for RIPE and facilitates
the organisation of RIPE Meetings.
RIPE Meetings
RIPE Meetings take place three times a year. The RIPE Working Groups
gather to openly discuss the current challenges and to develop solutions
at each of these meetings. The main purpose of these open meetings is
to discuss technical and policy issues affecting Internet administration
and operations specific to IP networking. Network operators also meet
at RIPE Meetings to discuss technical co-ordination matters.
Policies regarding IP networking are created within RIPE,
in particular the Local Internet Registries Working Group (LIR-WG). The
RIPE NCC does not set policies but ensures the consistent application
of policies within its service region.
During 2002, RIPE Meetings have seen a slight decrease in attendees representing
telecommunications companies and an increase in attendees representing
governments and associations. All attendees of RIPE 43 were asked to participate
in the RIPE NCC Members and Stakeholders Survey and to attend an open
forum discussion to help the RIPE NCC pinpoint areas where improvement
is needed.
More information about RIPE Meetings can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/
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7. RIPE NCC in the Internet Industry
In 2002, the RIPE NCC continued to support and represent the interests
of its membership and the RIPE community to Internet industry groups and
government. The main goal of its outreach activities remains the promotion
of the open, bottom-up, industry self-regulatory structure common to all
RIR communities in managing Internet address resources.
Each year, the RIPE NCC actively participates in a number of technical
forums and policy development meetings. At related industry and government
meetings particular attention is focused on increasing awareness of the
distinct roles of RIPE and the RIPE NCC in Internet administration. A
list of presentations delivered at meetings in 2002 can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/about/presentations/
Industry focus in 2002 was centred primarily around ICANN with the sudden
announcement of the ICANN Evolution and Reform process. Prior to this
issue, negotiations were underway to finalise a contract between ICANN
and the RIRs on matters of roles, responsibilities and procedures relating
to Internet address management and global address management policies.
The purpose of the ICANN evaluation and reform process was to redefine
ICANN and its operational relationship with its supporting organisations.
The ICANN Evolution and Reform Committee published a succession of reports
and a “Blueprint for Reform”. In response, the RIR boards collectively
produced a number of documents with the intention of aiding the ICANN
development process. In October, the RIR boards jointly published the
“RIR Blueprint for Evolution and Reform of Internet Address Management”.
This report brought forward a summary of discussions, stressed support
for the bottom-up policy making process, and proposed a mutual view on
a significantly streamlined resource management process with the establishment
of a “Number Resource Registry” organisation.
As the year ended, the overall outcome remained open. The RIPE NCC is
confident that future dialogue will establish an agreement governing the
ASO and a relationship agreement between ICANN and the RIRs.
The RIPE NCC remained committed to its workings with the ASO Address
Council as outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding. Address Council
elections were held at the RIPE 43 Meeting in Rhodes, Greece with Wilfried
Wöber re-elected as an Address Council member. The three Address
Council members from the RIPE NCC service region in 2002 were:
• Sabine Jaume-Rajaonia (RENATER, France)
• Hans Petter Holen (Tiscali AS, Norway)
• Wilfried Wöber (Vienna University, Austria)
More information and announcements on ICANN and ASO developments can
be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/about/regional/icann.html
In October 2002, the Latin American and Caribbean Network information
Centre (LACNIC) received full recognition from ICANN as an RIR. The RIPE
NCC is pleased to welcome LACNIC as the fourth RIR. LACNIC operates from
facilities in Montevideo, Uruguay and an operational centre located in
São Paulo, Brazil. More information about LACNIC can be found at:
http://www.lacnic.org
The existing RIRs continue to offer their support for the development
of the emerging RIR, AfriNIC (African Network Information Centre). The
RIRs participated in the AfriNIC open meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya in
August 2002. A significant development announced at the meeting was the
selection of two candidates from the African region to undergo Hostmaster
training at the RIPE NCC offices in 2003. More information about AfriNIC
can be found at:
http://www.afrinic.org/
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8.Financial Report
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General
All amounts are expressed in kEuro. Foreign currencies are converted
at the daily exchange rate at the date of transaction or valuation. Historic
costs have been used throughout unless otherwise stated.
Notes to the RIPE NCC Statement of Income and Expenditure 2002
The year 2002 resulted in a deficit of 2,369 kEuro. This deficit was
a result of the decrease in income in 2002. This is the first deficit
in the history of the RIPE NCC and, although it decreases our reserves
substantially, the historically built-up surpluses guarantee the financial
stability and the continuity of RIPE NCC operations.
Revenues
The total income of the RIPE NCC decreased by 11% due to less than expected
LIR membership income in 2002. This decrease was due to the less than
expected net growth number of new LIRs, 147 in 2002 vs 555 in 2001, and
the decrease of 16% on average in the membership fees. See graph.
RIPE Meeting contributions decreased by 100 kEuro due to less conference
attendees, approximately 300 per meeting in 2002 versus 400 in 2001. Miscellaneous
income was up as more TTM test-boxes were placed in 2002 and written off
debts of 2001 that were paid in 2002. The interest result on our reserves
is 167 kEuro and is reflected in the financial expenses.
Expenditures
The growth in expenditure in 2002 was up 25% from 2001. The growth in
personnel expenditure was the main cause. In 2002, the RIPE NCC had on
average a workforce of 99.0 FTEs (Full Time Equivalents) versus 75.9 in
2001. During 2002 we saw a stabilisation of the membership. However, the
existing members put in more requests than in 2001. An increase in personnel
was necessary to cope with this increased workload and to support an increase
to our service levels.
RIPE Meeting expenses were down by 20 kEuro in comparison to 2001 due
to fewer meeting attendees. LIR Training Course expenses increased by
45 kEuro in comparison to 2001 as a result of more courses given in 2002,
i.e. 61 in 2002 versus 55 in 2001, and an active approach to cover the
RIPE NCC region efficiently.
Depreciation expenses increased by 383 kEuro as a result of the computer
purchases made in 2001. In the year at issue the total purchases were
almost 45% lower than in the financial year 2001, i.e. 503 kEuro in 2002
versus 914 kEuro in 2001. The computer depreciation expenses are approximately
75% of total depreciation expenses.
An increase in the workforce has led to a liability to the Personnel
Fund of 483 kEuro in 2002. The Personnel Fund expense is calculated using
the number of people with employment contracts of indefinite time working
at the RIPE NCC as at 31 December 2002.
All outstanding LIR membership invoices for the financial year at issue
are expensed. For 2002 the bad debts expense was 403 kEuro.
Notes to the RIPE NCC Balance Sheet as per 31 December 2002
Assets are valued at historical costs and are depreciated on a straight-line
basis, starting in the month after acquisition. Computers including activated
software are written off in two years, infrastructure is written off in
three years and officefurniture and equipment in five years. All items
under EUR 1,000 are expensed.
Accounts receivable have decreased in comparison with 31 December 2001
due to the fact that the LIR membership fee invoices were sent out in
November 2002 while in 2001 this was done in December. This difference
in timing has led to a decrease in the accounts receivable balance even
though the total invoiced amount was up by more than 60%.
Prepayments include rent, equipment, pension, health and deposits for
RIPE Meeting venues. Other receivables consist of interest receivable,
fees to be received, payments in transit and long-term receivables.
Capital
Up to 1998, surpluses have been accumulated in the RIPE NCC reserves.
In 1998, the RIPE NCC agreed with the Dutch tax authorities on a tax ruling
that allows surpluses to be put into a Clearing House. All yearly surpluses
since 1998 have been allocated to the Clearing House.
Current liabilities
Unearned revenues
The unearned revenues consist of invoices sent in the financial reporting
year but pertaining to the following accounting year. The increase in
LIR membership fees for the year 2003 has resulted in a vast increase
of the unearned revenue balance.
In comparison with the financial report 2001 the holiday allowance reservation
and the accrued taxation for this is not accounted for in this category
but is accounted for under miscellaneous payable.
In the course of 2002part of the ICANN fee was paid. Therefore the total
accrued expenses decreased at 31 December 2002. The accrued holiday allowance
increased as a result of the increase in number of staff.
Items not shown in Balance Sheet
The RIPE NCC rents office space in two buildings and has four separate
rental agreements for these. Four bank guarantees have been issued for
an amount of 135 kEuro to cover the rent of the office space in Amsterdam.
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Auditor’s Report
To the General meeting and
Executive Board of the
RIPE NCC Association
Singel 258
1016 AB Amsterdam
Introduction
We have audited the financial statements of Réseaux IP Européens
Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC), Amsterdam, for the year 2002.
These financial statements are the responsibility of the management of
the association. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these
financial statements based on our audit.
Scope
We conducted our audit in accordance with auditing standards generally
accepted in the Netherlands. Those standards require that we plan and
perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial
statements are free of material misstatement. An audit includes examining,
on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the
financial statements. An audit also includes assessing the accounting
principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well
as evaluating the overall financial statements presentation of the financial
statements. We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for
our opinion.
Opinion
In our opinion, the financial statements give a true and fair view of
the financial position of the association as at 31 December 2002 and of
the result for the year ended in accordance with accounting principles
accepted in the Netherlands.Amsterdam, 13
May 2003M.H.P. van Winsen
Registeraccountant
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RIPE Network Coordination Centre
P.O. Box 10096
1001 EB Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Phone: +31 20 535 4444
Fax: +31 20 535 4445
© RIPE NCC
All rights reserved.
Cover Design: De Case
Layout: The RIPE NCC
Photography: Chris van Houts
The RIPE NCC Annual Report 2002 can also be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/annual-report
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