1. PROS & CONS
PROS
A.1 Acceptance of DNS for Special Treatment
Studies like http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-45/presentations/ripe45-eof-rickard.pdf
show clearly that ccTLD and gTLD name servers are a critical network
infrastructure that justify special policies to guarantee operability
of Internet applications.
A.2. Policy Harmonisation
Three out of five RIRs (APNIC, ARIN and LACNIC) have policies
allowing assignments to network critical infrastructure. All three
policies classify TLD name servers as critical infrastructure.
Extracts from these policies can be found in Appendices I through
III.
A.3 Scalability of DNS
To serve the projected increase of DNS queries and to ensure
sufficient network topological coverage and diversity TLD managers
need to deploy
an increasing number of name servers.
A.4 Resilience
Internet has become part of the daily life and their availabilty
is as important as the availability of all public services. Anycasting
is currently the state-of-the-art solution to lower the impact
of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
A.5 IPv6 Support
As the world starts exploiting IPv6, the DNS infrastructure should
support IPv6 natively. However it is not yet possible to reduce
the number of name servers in the IPv4 cloud.
CONS
B.1 Waste of Address Space
Accepting a number of IPv4/24 and IPv6/32 allocations for critical
network infrastructures does not align with the traditional address
conservation efforts. With anycasting it is very likely that only
a few addresses from the entire assignment would be used.
B.2 Root DNS are Special, Others are Not
RIPE Document 233 dated 24 May 2002 says: "Although it is
undesirable to give special status to any IP (IPv4 or IPv6) address
block, it was agreed by the community that the particular need
defined in this document is the only justifiable exception to
that general principle."
B.3
Assigning an own network prefix is just a workaround to ensure
global reachability which could also be achieved by adjusting
currently deployed route filter practices.
Appendix A. APNIC Policy
(Following section is taken from http://www.apnic.net/docs/policy/add-manage-policy.html
- 11.3)
11.3 Critical infrastructure
The following critical infrastructure networks, if operating
in the Asia Pacific region, are eligible to receive a portable
assignment:
Assignments to critical infrastructure are available only to
the actual operators of the network infrastructure performing
such functions. Registrar organisations which do not actually
host the network housing the registry infrastructure, will not
be eligible for an assignment under this policy.
The minimum assignment made under these terms is /24.
Appendix B. ARIN Policy
(Following section taken from http://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#four4)
4.4. Micro-allocation - ARIN will make micro-allocations to critical
infrastructure providers of the Internet, including public exchange
points, core DNS service providers (e.g. ICANN-sanctioned root,
gTLD, and ccTLD operators) as well as the RIRs and IANA. These
allocations will be no longer than a /24 using IPv4 or a /48 using
IPv6. Multiple allocations may be granted in certain situations.
Appendix C. LACNIC Policy
(Following section is taken from http://lacnic.net/policy-en.pdf)
3.3.3 Micro Allocations
Micro allocation is the name given to those allocations that
imply blocks smaller than /20 but always larger than or equal
to /24.
LACNIC can grant this type of allocation in case of projects
and infrastructure for networks that are key or critical for the
region, such as IXPs (Internet Exchange Points), NAPs (Network
Access Points), RIRs, ccTLDs, among others.
In the case of IXPs or NAPs, in order to be able to apply for
this type of allocation, organizations shall meet the following
requirements:
1. Duly document the following aspects:
1. 1 Prove by means of their bylaws their capacity of IXP or
NAP. The organization shall have at least three members and an
open policy in relation to the association of new members.
1. 2 Submit a company structure organizational diagram.
1. 3 Document the numbering plan to be implemented.
2. Provide a usage plan for the following three and six months.
The rest of the applications shall be studied based on the analysis
of the documentation justifying the critical and/or key aspects
of the project. Organizations receiving micro allocations are
not authorized to suballocate these addresses.
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