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PI Assignment Size

This policy proposal has been accepted

The new RIPE Document is: ripe-528

You're looking at an older version: 2

The current (published) version is 3
2006-05
State:
Accepted
Publication date
Affects
Draft document
DRAFT: IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies for the RIPE NCC Service Region
Author(s)
Proposal Version
3.0 - 24 Jun 2011
All Versions
Accepted
20 Oct 2011
Working Group
Address Policy Working Group
Proposal type
  • New
Policy term
Indefinite
New RIPE Document(s)

This proposal allows for End Users who request a Provider Independent IPv4 address assignment to be assigned limited additional address space to make the assignment size a multiple of /24. The End User must demonstrate the intent to multihome the assignment.

This proposal allows for End Users who request a Provider Independent IPv4 address assignment to be assigned limited additional address space to make the assignment size a multiple of /24. The End User must demonstrate the intent to multihome the assignment.

Policy Text:

Following text is to be added from the RIPE Policy document:

IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies for the RIPE NCC Service Region

6.10 Provider Independent IPv4 Assignments for Multihoming

The RIPE NCC will assign additional IPv4 addresses to an End User in order to make the assignment size a multiple of a /24 if an End User demonstrates:

  • the need for Provider Independent (PI) IPv4 address space; and
  • the intent to announce this address space for the purpose of multihoming to two or more Autonomous Systems which the End User does not own or control.

Cumulatively, no more than 248 additional IPv4 addresses may be assigned to any particular End User for the purposes outlined in section 6.10.

Rationale:

a. Arguments Supporting the Proposal

Removal of discrimination: prefixes of /25 and longer are routinely filtered by many network service providers on the Internet. As many End Users who apply for PI assignments do so for the purposes of small-scale multi-homing, in practice the current assignment policies discriminate against these End Users.

Good stewardship: there is significant evidence that End User applications significantly exaggerate their IP addressing requirements when applying for PI assignments in order to make their application qualify for a small PI assignments. By removing the incentive for End Users to exaggerate on PI assignment application forms where that address space is required for multihoming, the RIPE NCC can institute better stewardship of IP number resources.

Precedent exists: /24-aligned PI assignment requests are accepted by other RIRs. This demonstrates that acceptance of this policy will not create any new or undesirable precedents for global IP address assignment policies.

Negligible effect: there is no evidence to suggest that implementation of this policy will have an appreciable effect on the IPv4 depletion rate, as the current policy requirements are routinely ignored due to exaggerated utilisation claims.

b. Arguments Opposing the Proposal

Timescales: it could be argued that on the basis that RIR IPv4 address depletion is likely to occur within less than two years, that this policy is too late for there to be any point in implementing it.

Routing policy vs. addressing policy: it has been argued that this policy makes addressing policy contingent on Internet routing policies, and that the two should remain separate.

Impact Analysis

Note: In order to provide additional information related to the proposal, details of an impact analysis carried out by the RIPE NCC are documented below. The projections presented in this analysis are based on existing data and should be viewed only as an indication of the possible impact that the policy might have if the proposal is accepted and implemented.

A. RIPE NCC's Understanding of the Proposed Policy

This proposal directs the RIPE NCC to assign IPv4 PI space in multiples of a /24 when the end-user demonstrates the intent to multi-home the address space to at least two autonomous systems that the end-user does not control.

This may result in more address space being assigned than would otherwise be justified. Therefore the RIPE NCC shall ensure that the total amount of "extra" space held by the end-user will not exceed 248 IPs, even if the end-user receives multiple IPv4 PI assignments over the years.

B. Impact of Policy on Registry and Addressing System

Address/Internet Number Resource Consumption:
After analysing the data that is currently available, the RIPE NCC does not anticipate that any significant impact will be caused if this proposal is implemented.

Fragmentation/Aggregation:
After analysing the data that is currently available, the RIPE NCC does not anticipate that any significant impact will be caused if this proposal is implemented.

C. Impact of Policy on RIPE NCC Operations/Services

Registration Services:
After analysing the data that is currently available, the RIPE NCC does not anticipate that any significant impact will be caused if this proposal is implemented.

Billing/Finance Department: After analysing the data that is currently available, the RIPE NCC does not anticipate that any significant impact will be caused if this proposal is implemented.

RIPE Database:
After analysing the data that is currently available, the RIPE NCC does not anticipate that any significant impact will be caused if this proposal is implemented.

D. Legal Impact of Policy

After analysing the data that is currently available, the RIPE NCC does not anticipate that the implementation of this proposed policy will cause any significant legal implications