Registration Services status update

Dear Colleagues, 

As reported at the RIPE 36 meeting in Budapest, the RIPE NCC has been 
going
through a difficult period with an ever increasing workload over the 
last year.

As a direct result of this the response time for IP Address requests 
has
increased to longer than what is normally considered acceptable. At 
RIPE 36
the RIPE NCC reported several short, medium and long-term actions in 
order to
improve the Registration Services.

Increasing the resources in the Registration Services, improving 
efficiency,
further automation of processes, increasing the level of expertise 
and
strengthening staff's technical awareness are concrete examples of 
actions we
reported to initiate on both a short and long-term basis.

As a short term measure we temporarily increased the staffing level 
in the
Registration Services dramatically by utilising resources drawn 
throughout the
organisation. It was clear that this action had a positive effect on 
the wait
queue which rapidly decreased to a couple of days.

As you may have noticed the wait queue has again increased over the 
last
couple of weeks. We are in the process applying the actions mentioned 
above
and are also hiring new staff to cope with the considerable workload. 
However,
it will take quite some time before the new hostmasters are trained 
and
working efficiently.

In addition to hiring new staff we are continuing to use the 
resources in the
organisation in a more flexible and efficient manner. We have also 
asked our
colleagues at APNIC for additional resources that they have very 
kindly agreed
to provide. The RIPE NCC will thus have two APNIC hostmasters for a 
short
period this summer who will contribute to the processing of IP 
Address
requests. This will help reduce the current workload while we 
continue to
realise our long-term improvement goals.

I intend to further discuss these goals with the May 17 Task Force 
set up at
RIPE 36 and look forward to any input they may have!

Please rest assured that we are doing our utmost to reduce the 
current wait queue and that we are determined to improve the quality 
of
service in the Registration Services.


Kind regards,

Nurani Nimpuno
Registration Services Manager
RIPE NCC