Re: [address-policy-wg] 2008-09 New Policy Proposal (ASPLAIN Format for the Registration of 4-byte ASNs)

[Nick Hilliard nick@localhost]

Filiz Yilmaz wrote:
> You can find the full proposal at:
> 
>     http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2008-09.html

Can definitely support this.

ASDOT is a broken representation and has no merit of any substance.  Not
only that, the two arguments opposing the proposal are irrelevant.

- "ASDOT is more easily remembered"

For the foreseeable future, after the first 10k assignments of ASN32s in a
particular 16 bit ASN block range (e.g. AS3.x), both ASDOT and ASPLAIN
formats will be represented using similar numbers of digits.

- "All existing 4-byte only assignments have been made in ASDOT"

As of today, RIPE has assigned 19 ASN32s.  Changing the representation for
these 19 holders (most of whom will have requested them for testing
purposes anyway) is not going to be a major issue.

ASPLAIN representation is important for anyone who is in the business of
writing or maintaining BGP prefix and AS path filters, either router-side
or script-side.  In this area, ASDOT format is just a bagful of hurt with
no redeeming features whatever.

Incidentally, the following documents will also need to be updated:

RIPE Database Query Reference Manual, section 2.3
RIPE Database Update Reference Manual, section 1.2.3
RIPE Database Update Reference Manual, table A1

However, as the RIPE database manual is outside the context of the PDP, it
is probably appropriate to omit this from the policy proposal.

It's important that this policy proposal be passed before Jan 1, 2009, when
the RIPE NCC starts issuing ASN32s by default.  After this date, it will
become a lot more difficult to clean up the mess that's going to happen.


Nick
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