(Message resent) Registration Services status update

* Apologies for the formatting of previous message.


Dear Colleagues, 

As reported at the RIPE 36 meeting in Budapest, the RIPE NCC has been 
going through a difficult period with an ever increasing workload 
over the last year.

As a direct result of this the response time for IP Address requests 
has increased to longer than what is normally considered acceptable. 
At RIPE 36 the RIPE NCC reported several short, medium and long-term 
actions in order to improve the Registration Services.

Increasing the resources in the Registration Services, improving 
efficiency, further automation of processes, increasing the level of 
expertise and strengthening staff's technical awareness are concrete 
examples of actions we reported to initiate on both a short and 
long-term basis.

As a short term measure we temporarily increased the staffing level 
in the Registration Services dramatically by utilising resources 
drawn throughout the organisation. It was clear that this action had 
a positive effect on the wait queue which rapidly decreased to a 
couple of days.

As you may have noticed the wait queue has again increased over the 
last couple of weeks. We are in the process applying the actions 
mentioned above and are also hiring new staff to cope with the 
considerable workload. However, it will take quite some time before 
the new hostmasters are trained and working efficiently.

In addition to hiring new staff we are continuing to use the 
resources in the organisation in a more flexible and efficient 
manner. We have also asked our colleagues at APNIC for additional 
resources that they have very kindly agreed to provide. The RIPE NCC 
will thus have two APNIC hostmasters for a short period this summer 
who will contribute to the processing of IP  Address requests. This 
will help reduce the current workload while we continue to realise 
our long-term improvement goals.

I intend to further discuss these goals with the May 17 Task Force 
set up at RIPE 36 and look forward to any input they may have.

Please rest assured that we are doing our utmost to reduce the 
current wait queue and that we are determined to improve the quality 
of service in the Registration Services.


Kind regards,

Nurani Nimpuno
Registration Services Manager
RIPE NCC