20 Years Serving The RIPE Community
In April 1992, the RIPE NCC was established to coordinate and support the activities of the RIPE community and to function as a European Internet Registry (later a Regional Internet Registry) responsible for the distribution and management of Internet number resources. This month, the RIPE NCC celebrates 20 years of serving the RIPE community.
Originally set up as part of Réseaux Associés pour la Recherche Européenne (RARE, later TERENA) and with a staff of one (current Chief Scientist Daniel Karrenberg), the RIPE NCC has grown over the past two decades to become a diverse organisation with more than 8,000 members and responsible for a wide range of functions and projects. During this time, the Internet has grown and interwoven with business and society in ways few could have predicted, and the role of the RIPE NCC has evolved to meet a range of new challenges.
During the RIPE 64 Meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, there was a plenary session devoted to celebrating this milestone and looking to the future of the RIPE NCC. There was also a quiz for RIPE Meeting attendees on the RIPE NCC's 20 years. The winner of the quiz was Antoin Verschuren, who got all 21 answers correct.
As part of the activity surrounding this anniversary, the RIPE NCC is compiling a timeline of significant milestones in the organisation's development. Below is a first draft of this timeline, but we invite our membership and community to contribute - if you know of any major events that you think should be included in this timeline, or if you have an experience or photograph that you'd like to share, please send details to 20years@ripe.net.
20 Years of the RIPE NCC
| April 1992 | |
| RIPE NCC began | |
| 2 April 1992 | |
| RIPE NCC makes flying start - network services available on day one | |
| 1992 | |
| RIPE Database moved from EUnet to RIPE NCC | |
| 1993 | |
| Launch of www.ripe.net | |
| First registry workshop (RIPE 16) | |
| Tony Bates (current Skype CEO) joins RIPE NCC | |
| Launch of PRIDE to develop the routing registry | |
| First list of LIRs published | |
| 1994 | |
| 100th member joins RIPE NCC | |
| RIPE Database updated for CIDR | |
| First staff shortage due to rapid Internet growth | |
| 1995 | |
| RIPE NCC Contributors Committee established | |
| First use of self-declared charging categories (Small, Medium, Large) | |
| 1996 | |
| Minimum charging categories agreed based on resource holdings | |
| Hierarchical authorisation introduced in RIPE Database | |
| 1997 | |
| Test Traffic Measurements (TTM) service began | |
| RIPE NCC moves from NIKHEF to current offices | |
| RIPE NCC incorporated as not-for-profit organisation | |
| RIPE NCC starts to operate K-root server | |
| 1998 | |
| 1,000th member joins RIPE NCC | |
| RIPE NCC first secretariat of CENTR | |
| 1999 | |
| MoU signed with ICANN to form Address Supporting Organisation (ASO) | |
| Routing Information Service (RIS) launched | |
| Axel Pawlik becomes RIPE NCC Managing Director | |
| RIPE NCC makes its first IPv6 allocations | |
| 2000 | |
| 2,500th member joins RIPE NCC | |
| Routing Registry Consistency Check (RRCC) started by RIPE NCC | |
| 2001 | |
| Daniel Karrenberg receives Internet Society Jonathan Postel Service Award | |
| RIPE NCC gets involved in developing and implementing DNSSEC | |
| Start of NSD design and development with NLnet Labs | |
| 2002 | |
| First RIPE NCC Membership Survey | |
| RIPE NCC becomes Tier 0 registry for ENUM | |
| Native IPv6 access added to DNS services | |
| 2003 | |
| LIR Portal launched | |
| RIPE NCC involved in World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) | |
| Formation of the Number Resource Organization (NRO) | |
| First RIPE NCC Regional Meeting held in Dubai | |
| 2004 | |
| RIPE NCC Regional Meetings held in Moscow and Nairobi | |
| 2005 | |
| ICANN recognises AfriNIC as fifth RIR | |
| Formalisation of the RIPE Policy Development Process (PDP) | |
| First RIPE NCC Roundtable Meeting for Governments and Regulators | |
| Launch of DNSMON service | |
| RIPE NCC E-Learning Centre launched | |
| 2006 | |
| RIPE Certification Task Force formed | |
| 2007 | |
| 32-bit ASNs allocated by the RIPE NCC for the first time | |
| 5,000th member joins RIPE NCC | |
| RIPE NCC establishes its Customer Service Desk | |
| First Middle East Network Operators Group (MENOG) Meeting | |
| 2008 | |
| First RIPE Meeting to be held in the Middle East | |
| 2009 | |
| Launch of RIPE Labs | |
| First IPv6 Training Course | |
| Launch of IPv6ActNow website | |
| The RIPE NCC sends its first tweet | |
| 2010 | |
| RIPE Atlas deployed as a pilot project | |
| First RIPE NCC Roundtable Meeting for Law Enforcement Agencies | |
| 2011 | |
| 50th RIPE Meeting since formation of the RIPE NCC | |
| Roll out of Internet Number Resource Certification (RPKI) | |
| First Eurasia Network Operators Group (ENOG) Meeting | |
| RIPE NCC receives final /8 of IPv4 address space from IANA | |
| First RIPE NCC Regional Meeting in South-East Europe (Dubrovnik) | |
| 2012 | |
| 8,000th member joins RIPE NCC | |
RIPE NCC staff picture 1997 (first after incorporation of RIPE NCC)