Minutes from RIPE 49

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RIPE 49 Meeting
RIPE NCC Services Working Group
Date: Tuesday 21 September 2004
Time: 14.00 - 15.30
Date: Thursday 23 September 2004
Time: 14.00 - 15.30
Location: Medici Ballroom
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A. Administrative Matters (5 min)
- Welcome
- Select a scribe
Nathalie Dougall (RIPE NCC)
- Distribute participants list
- Finalise agenda
- Approve minutes from RIPE 48:
http://www.ripe.net/wg/ncc-services/r48-minutes.html
Minutes approved.
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B. RIPE NCC Update - Axel Pawlik (10-15 min)
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49-services-ncc.pdf

*Updates and highlights
*Preview of Activity Plan 2005
*Training Services Department
*Membership Liaison
*Resigning of Standard Service Agreements
* Communications
*New Projects
*Software Engineering
*Operations

"Membership Focus is the Name of the Game" - RIPE NCC
-----------------------------------------------------
C. RIPE NCC Activity Plan 2005 - Axel Pawlik (10-15 min)
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49-services-ncc.pdf

*Member Service Desk
*Membership Survey 2005
*New Training Methods
*Anti-SPAM
*More K Rootserver anycast
*AP2005
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D. Anti-Spam Measures at NCC - Jim Reid (10-15 min)

http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49-services-spam.pdf

- Jim is not representing an LIR nor is he a member, but has been
getting spam from the NCC. He has discussed this with some RIPE NCC
Hostmasters and software people.  The spam issue is also not good from
NCC's point of view and Jim wants to tackle this by seeing a better
policy in dealing with spam.

- Jim gets spam, then replies to the NCC and is told to contact his
ISP. He finds this response unsatisfactory and annoying because some
spam originates from the RIPE NCC, and not necessarily from the ISP.

- Jim feels that the problem should be stopped before it gets to his
network and costs him.  - Some NCC servers use different programs
i.e. Spam Assassin, Blacklist etc.  However, the policy is unclear.  -
Not clear which anti-spam policies are in place regarding the
different mailing lists because it depends on the server that it is
sitting on.

Is there a Policy Vacuum?

Documentation/policy and info on the NCC site is difficult to
find. Information should be made more visible.

Jim asks NCC staff if they could document and suggest improvements.

Kurtis asks whether there is any comment on this?
Kurtis asks the NCC to come back with some proposals for the mailing
list and at the next meting.

Daniel makes jabber comment from Webmaster: there is text on the
website: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/about/maillists.html

Andrei Robachevsky (RIPE NCC): I think you raised an important point,
as spam causes problems for the NCC as well, and this is partly
because of policy issues.  For example: even for group mailing lists,
they are quiet and free from spam as we do "human" spam
filtering. i.e. only subscribers can post to the list, which reduces a
huge amount of spam. We are now making classification of mailing lists
and we are developing a consistent policy with regards to spam.

Jim Reid (DNS MODA): That would be good. Sometimes my mail gets held
up if I'm not a member of other working group lists. Another
interesting issue is statistics: it would be nice to have the
information of how much spam is arriving on your servers every day and
how much is being thrown away. This would be helpful to know, in order
to put things in context.

Andrei Robachevsky: we can make the statistical poll Kurtis: leave it
with Andrei to get back to the mailing list and will discuss at next
meeting in Stockholm

Kurtis thanks Jim for making proposal and mentions that when the
Services Working Group was set up after the RIPE meeting in Barcelona,
this was the idea - that members of the community would present to the
WG.

14:44 session closes.
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(Thursday:)

E. RIPE NCC Billing Procedures and Charging Scheme - Jochem de Ruig
(10-15 min)
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49-services-billing.pdf

*General Billing Information
*Billing Procedure
www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/billing-2004.html

*Billing 2004
*Outlook for 2005

Comments:

- Denesh Bhabuta (Aexiomus): We are told that if you have a VAT
number, then it shouldn't appear on the bill, but when we attend
meetings, it appears on the bill and its extremely difficult to claim
this back.

- Jochem de Ruig (RIPE NCC): - in principle, in the Netherlands the
VAT is included in your meeting fee and you can claim that back from
the Dutch tax authorities if you want to.

- Denesh Bhabuta (Aexiomus): This is difficult, but if you can do it
with the qmembership fees, then there's no reason why you can't do it
with the meeting fees.

- Jochem de Ruig (RIPE NCC): Yes, I wish I could do it. What we say to
the Dutch tax authorities is that the service fee is an international
transaction, which is why we can shift the VAT from us to you. But
with a meeting that is in the Netherlands, it is clear that the
service is done in the NL, so we are not allowed by the tax
authorities to shift the VAT to you, so I can't put on the receipt
saying "VAT shifted" and that you submit it here
locally. Unfortunately.

Presentation on the Charging Scheme and the Scoring Algorithm
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49-services-billing.pdf

*Charging Scheme process
*Scoring Algorithm 2004
Size determined on basis of 2 variables, namely:
- Prefix of the allocation/assignment
- Age of the allocation/assignment

14:40 Jochem ends. No questions
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F. RIPE NCC Training Team activities and developments - Rumy Kanis (20
min)
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49-services-training.pdf

*Outline of courses: LIR, Routing Registry and DNSSec
*Seminars and presentations - We have started offering presentations at
conferences/meetings - please send requests!
*Training in 2004
*Training in 2005
*Developing Training Services
*Hosting
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G. Feedback from Recent LIR Mergers - Kurtis (10-15 min)

http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49-services-mergers.pdf

A presentation on how LIR's work with the RIPE NCC with respect to
mergers - we wanted to find out their experiences in dealing with the
NCC on this issue.  Kurtis outlines the presentation and emphasises
that the NCC kept the information received from the LIR's
confidential.

The NCC contacted all LIR's that have completed mergers in the last 6 months.

* 27 members
* 22% response rate - all positive
* 7.5% had ideas for improvement, namely:

* Provide documentation repository
* Provide a free IP admin tool to new LIRs
* Re-structure audit process
* Promote and encourage consultancy firms to new LIRs

Comments:


- Joao Damas (ISC) - It would seem more reasonable to me to have the
NCC publish a well defined interface to their systems for people on
the outside, whether private for own use or open source for everyone
to use.

- Kurtis: who are interested in this? No hands shown...How many people
think the NCC should develop a tool like this that should be fully
available? No one responds...

- Kurtis: How many people use tools, other than an acsci file, to keep
track of address space? - 10 people show their hands. How many tools
like this are written by yourselves? A lot of response...

- Randy Bush (IIJ): I'd like to explain why I think these two seem to
be in conflict, but are not... These tools are a small part of our
toolset and are integrated with the rest of them. So you are trying to
produce a standard one that is not going to fit in with the rest of
our puzzle.

- Kurtis: Would it be more useful to have a standardised date format tool?

- Randy Bush (IIJ): To exchange what with whom?

- Kurtis - If you are merging LIR's you need to take the data you have...

- Randy Bush (IIJ): I don't have any plans to merge. It would be
useful to have this if I could use it today, but to justify spending
the money in case there is a merger in the future would be more
difficult to sell to my manager.

-Kurtis promises to take this discussion and ideas to the mailing list
as there appears to be some interest, though it will take a lot of
work to get this developed.

Jabber question: Someone asks whether a standard format will actually
help with mergers?

- Kurtis: The feedback was from people who had done mergers, and they
said that it would help. My own experience is that I think it would
help in a merger process.

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H. Topic's for Discussion - Kurtis Lindqvist
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49-services-discussion.pdf
Kurtis will present this as "himself" and as general member of the community.

Observation of how the process of activity planning and how the
Services Working group is progressing.

*Timing of input to the Activity Plan and Budget

Rob Blokzijl (RIPE Chair): I think it's important to have a
well-structured way for this group to produce input for the AP. The
difference between 3 meetings per year (up until now) and 2 meetings
per year, which we will try out next year, is the January meeting. At
the January meeting - no one thinks of the AP as it was just agreed at
the end of the previous year. The May meeting was the one where, in
timely fashion we could bring ideas for AP for following year and the
fall meeting in September is last opportunity where we can bring ideas
for next years AP. So, in practice, not much has really changed from 3
meetings per year to 2 meetings per year. We only miss the January
meeting, where people think that the AP is for "later" this year,
anyway.


- Kurtis: if we have 3 meetings per year we would have the opportunity
to make process better. I do not want to reopen the discussion, it is
just an observation.

Rob Blokzijl (RIPE Chair): I want to remind all that proposing changes
and additions doesn't have a formal date and can happen at any moment
of the year.  Anyone can generate input to folks who have final
responsibility to draft AP. This can happen via mailing lists or
working groups, for example. Face-to-face meetings generate more
interest. Channels are not being closed or narrowed.

End discussion.

*Proposal: Increase focus of work
A new RIPE meeting plan?

The first part of week could be for operational content and the second
part of the week could be used for policy discussions. It would mean
that people could better focus on topics and attend what they are
interested in. Don't know what this would do to attendance numbers
though!

- Rob Blokzijl (RIPE Chair): I fully support this, and find it a
valuable exercise to develop this further. We should go through all
the agendas of the WGs and the EOF etc. and see how this week would
have worked with such a framework. Based on that, we can try to design
something and maybe try it out at the next RIPE meeting.  It needs
careful thought and preparation, but I see the advantages.

- Randy Bush (IIJ): operations of what?

- Kurtis: You know what I mean.

- Randy - No I don't. I find very little operational content here for
what I consider to be operations, as an ISP.

- Kurtis: I don't disagree, but if you look at the charter of the working groups,
there is a difference between Address policy and the Services Working Group.

- Rob Blokzijl (RIPE Chair): On Randy's comment. It would be great to
have more operational stuff in, so operators do something!

- Joao Damas (ISC): I am just confused. I thought I was attending a
RIPE meeting, not a RIPE NCC meeting. I heard you say that decision to
go from 3 to 2 meetings per year was based on the NCC membership.

- Kurtis: Comment was from NCC Membership Survey. It was discussed at
length in the plenary, and it is a discussion that belongs in the
plenary, not here.

- Joao Damas (ISC): That is exactly my next point. If this is a RIPE
meeting, then this discussion should take place in the plenary, not
the NCC Services Working Group. A lot of people that come here have no
interaction with the RIPE NCC and as time goes by, the purpose is to
meet people, do business and eventually learn of operations and
hopefully that is part of the content that develops more. So maybe if
there is no need to have 3 meetings per year, we can actually follow
the NANOG model, have a shorter meeting and skip Address policy? But
again, this should be discussed somewhere else if this is the RIPE
meeting.

No other comments


Y. Open Microphone

No other business.

Z. AOB

None.