RIPE 57, the first RIPE Meeting to be held in the Middle East, opened on Sunday with a welcome address from Abdulla Hashim, Vice President/Enterprise Solutions of the meeting host, Etisalat. With 260 attendees checked in , RIPE 57 looked set to be another well-attended event. Highlights of the opening day's two Plenary sessions included a live demonstration of telnic's functionality and a discussion of Etisalat's experience with deploying IPv6 on its networks in the Middle East.
The Middle East Network Operators Group (MENOG) held tutorials on Sunday, directly before RIPE 57 began. Participants were able to attend sessions on IPv6 and on managing voice quality in converged IP networks.
The Certification Authority Task Force met on Sunday morning and the Enhanced Cooperation Task Force, set up at RIPE 55 in 2007, held its final meeting on Sunday morning. To continue the work started by the Task Force, a new RIPE Working Group has been formed. Those interested in the relationships between the RIPE community and governments, civil society and the public sector were encouraged to attend the Cooperation Working Group, which met for the first time on Thursday morning.
Etisalat organised Sunday's Welcome Event, which was held under the spectacular glass dome - the largest in the Middle East - in the JW Marriott Hotel. The evening included live Arabic music and tasty local snacks.
Highlights of the second day of RIPE 57 included reports from the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), the Number Resource Organization (NRO) and an update from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The afternoon Plenary session also saw the final report from the Enhanced Cooperation Task Force. RIPE Chair Rob Blokzijl formally dissolved the task force and thanked it for its work.
With much discussion going on in the Address Policy Working Group, four sessions were scheduled for this meeting. The first of these took place on Monday afternoon, when the following proposals were discussed:
Filiz Yilmaz, the RIPE NCC Policy Development Officer, also gave a presentation on the common topics currently being discussed in the different RIR communities.
Tuesday saw several working group sessions take place, including two additional Address Policy Working Group sessions. An overview of policies discussed during these sessions can be found below. Highlights of the day included a presentation on DNS Operational Experiences by Etisalat and a live demonstration of the RIPE NCC's Certification beta software in the NCC Services Working Group, which prompted much discussion.
Andrei Robachevsky, Chief Technical Officer, RIPE NCC, presented an informal proposal, “IPv6 Resources for RIPE Meetings”. There was also a discussion on the end of IPv4, which was split into two parts: Tom Vest's presentation of the document “Running on Empty: Challenges of Managing IP Addresses” and the proposal “Enabling Methods for Reallocation of IPv4 Resources” by Remco van Mook.
In the second session, Philip Smith presented the “Use of the Final /8” and “Efficient Use of Historical IPv4 Resources” proposals. After discussion on the latter, the RIPE NCC was asked to look into the feasibility of the proposal.
Cross working group material - those proposals that touch on work of the other working groups - were also discussed. “Initial Certification Policy for Provider Aggregatable Address Space Holders” was presented by Nigel Titley on behalf of the Certification Authority Task Force and “ASPLAIN Format for the Registration of 4-byte ASNs” was presented by the Address Policy Working Group Chair, as the proposer was not present.
Six working group sessions took place on Wednesday. Highlights from some of the working groups can be found below:
No formal proposals were discussed in Wednesday's Address Policy Working Group session, the last of four. There was some discussion on the RIPE Policy Development Process (PDP) deadlines for new proposals before upcoming RIPE Meetings.
Filiz Yilmaz (Policy Development Officer, RIPE NCC) talked about the language of policy documents and asked for input from the community about whether a language clean-up is necessary for the existing policy documents.
In the Open Policy Hour, Daniel Karrenberg gave a presentation entitled “The Very Last IPv4 Allocations/Some concerns About Perceived Unfairness”. Everyone who commented on this said that there was a need for policy action and that the RIPE NCC should investigate workable policies.
Axel Pawlik (Managing Director, RIPE NCC) gave an update about policy 2007-1, “Direct Internet Resource Assignments to End Users from the RIPE NCC” and the RIPE NCC Charging Scheme. The new Charging Scheme was accepted by the RIPE NCC members at the General Meeting on Tuesday.
In the DNS Working Group, there was discussion about the text for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) DNSSEC Notice of Inquiry (NoI). Jim Reid agreed to rework the text.
The ENUM Working Group included an update from Denesh Babuta on the UK ENUM Consortium, which has recently launched ENUM registry services.
A task force was formed during the Routing Working Group session. The task force will examine the use of RPKI certificates to secure RPSL objects. This task force will recommend the approach to be taken by the RIPE NCC.
The final day of the RIPE Meeting saw four working group sessions and two Plenary sessions take place. Highlights from Thursday included Lorenzo Colliti's presentations on IPv6 deployment at Google. During the Closing Plenary, the RIPE community also agreed to the content that the DNS Working Group will use to respond to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) DNSSEC Notice of Inquiry (NoI).
Denis Walker's presentation about mirroring the RIPE Database generated a lot of discussion in the working group. It was clear that this issue will need to be investigated in more depth, and it was suggested that the Data Protection Task Force discuss this in more detail.
The Cooperation Working Group met for the first time, with Patrik Fältström standing in for co-chairs Maria Häll and Martin Boyle who could not attend the meeting. There were updates on RIPE NCC outreach activities and some relevant developments in other working groups.
Fifty jeeps caused traffic chaos outside the meeting venue on Wednesday afternoon as they lined up to take attendees to the RIPE 57 Dinner, sponsored by the Middle East Network Operators Group (MENOG). Attendees were driven 70 km out of the city and into the desert, where they were treated to a bone-crunching half hour of 'dune bashing'. A brief respite from the off-road driving was provided when the convoy stopped to take in the beautiful desert sunset. The convoy arrived at the desert camp at dusk, where camel rides, sand-boarding, traditional water-pipes and henna tattooing were offered. The memorable evening concluded with a buffet dinner and some traditional music and belly dancing.
RIPE 58 takes place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, at the Krasnapolsky Hotel, from 4-8 May 2009. If you would like to present, or suggest a topic for discussion at RIPE 58, please email us. Sponsorship opportunities for RIPE 58 are available. Please email us for more details. Registration for RIPE 58 will be announced on the RIPE Mailing List and on this site.