Classless Registry Drafts

[Daniel Karrenberg <]

Dear colleagues,

we have prepared three draft documents describing how support for
classless addresses can be added to the RIPE database.  At the same time
we propose a clear split between the allocation registry and the routing
registry functions of the database.  The allocation registry holds
information about address space assignments done by Internet registries,
while the routing registry holds information about routing policies and
is largely maintained by the service providers. 

The three documents each describe one part of this new database. 

    ripe-81++         - routing registry
    ripe-inetnum      - allocation registry
    ripe-clarep       - representation of classless addresses

ripe-81++ is the longest document of the three.  It describes the
routing registry part of the database.  It is a direct descendant of
ripe-81.  There are major changes as required by the separation of
allocation and routing information.  Also there is now support
for classless routes and hence CIDR aggregation.  It is also now
possible to describe multiple ASes originating the same route. 

ripe-inetnum describes the changed inetnum object which is basically
stripped of all routing and obsoleted attributes.  ripe-inetnum also
describes the person object and thus constitutes a complete reference
for the allocation registry. 

ripe-clarep describes the representation of classless addresses in the
RIPE database and thus in both the routing and the allocation registry. 

As these proposals are relevant to all three working groups addressed,
we would appreciate if they could be discussed at the upcoming meeting
and if at all possible consensus reached at least about the general
design behind them.  We need to make the registries classless as soon as
possible and it will take some time to do the implementation. 

The documents can be found in ftp.ripe.net:ripe/drafts/<name>.{ps,txt}. 
We will be sending MIMEd announcements for all three shortly. 

Comments are very welcome indeed.

Daniel
Marten
Tony