MIR proposal

Hi
    Before i start the proposal i would like to ask a question, what ever
happened to the Organisation object? Was is ever put in the DB? If not why
not? as i am sure it got concensus.

Ok the proposal.

Background: We the evil UUNET/WorldCom in Europe have only one nework. AS702
covers all of our existing networks and is numbered out of all the LIR's we
currently run - 17 in total - so AS702 is really a non contiguous AS with
120,000 routes. Back in the old days it was never invisaged that networks
would ever get this large and the current concept of conservation,
conservation, conservation, aggregation does not really support very large
networks - i am not against conservation of IPv4  it just needs a fresh
look.

This proposal by definition will not appeal to all and will most certinly
cause some to view this whole idea as "UUNET trying to use its muscle",
believe me its not. We have to look at this proposal in the context of a
very large network desperate the reduce the amount of prefixes on the
routers before we hit the memory wall on routers and just the shear
logistics of managing the aggreagation internal and external and assignment
policies.

We like to concept of Supernational Registries but all that really does is
lump all of your current LIR bills into one and does not really help the
aggregation issues as the growth patterns in differant registries are vast
and range from near stagnent due to country specific reasons to the
explosive growth, with various levels in between. This means that as a
SuperNational it would be impossable to aggregate and reach 80% usage over
the registries CIDR. The process of aggregation would force the planning of
sub-allocation to give more than the immediate needed IPspace to allow for
growth, much the same way RIPE does now when allocating to large LIR's and
new LIR's. They will allocate a /20 and mark the contiguous /20 as "use
last" this same pattern of sub-allocation needs to happen a level below
RIR's and above LIR's - the MIR (multinational internet registry).

The multinational registry (MIR) is not a means by which a large comapany
with a very large network would have an advantage over LIR's. The LIR
structure is still needed to provide local knowledge assignment and local
aggregation, it will not replace LIR's just manage the overall aggregation
of a large block of IP space and sub-allocate to them. It will not be
limited by the 80% usage constraint but that by no way gives the MIR a free
hand. Rather than being constrained by a fixed number (the numbers would
have to be realistic) the MIR is governed by business nedds and routing
requirements which the NCC would have to be informed of and understand. This
does not mean the MIR ignore all of RIPE policy ie. /20 for startups etc.
rather we self manage the policies (as we do now) as the NCC does but the IP
blocks are allocated out of one very large block say a /11 in accordance
with current assignment policy.

A /11 i here you gasp, well a /11 is not an unreasonable size we have more
than that now. If we knew now how big the network was to get then we
probably would have created this sort of concept from day one, one thing we
can be sure of its not going to shrink. Just think how much better all our
routing tables would be if we could renumber into a single larger contiguous
block, but we can not. This problem is not going to go away and IPV4 will be
around for a while yet so rather than compounding the problem by continuing
in this blinkered fashion of fragmenting large networks i think we should
take this fresh look at the way the current admin structure is interfering
with current network planning, with commercial impacts that brings.

Looking a little into the future i think this structure would help with IPV6
too. The only differance is we know how big the networks are and what we
need to create a well aggregated IPV6 network now with MIR's.

Summary: Please do not look at this and close your mind because it does not
affect your network it may do one day. From a purely community oriented
spirit it is meant to try and improve overall aggregation, from a purely
buiness point of view it makes sense to add another level of managment
without complicating it but only for those who need it.

RIR - Would still continue to admin the IP space for both MIR's and LIR's
for the good of the community.
MIR - Would manage the allocation (large ) from RIR and suballocate to LIR's
aggregating the network correctly but be responsible to RIR for their
actions
LIR - Would assign space to infrastructure and customers as usual but would
either be directly in contact with the NCC or via the MIR.

I hope this does not cause too much controversie it is not my intention.

Regards
Stephen Burley
UUNET EMEA Hostmaster
SB855-RIPE