nanog mailing list archives

Re: Allocation of IP Addresses


From: Nathan Stratton <nathan () netrail net>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 19:37:59 -0500 (EST)

On Wed, 13 Mar 1996, Jim Browning wrote:

I may be opening a can of worms, and if so, I believe it is one which needs 
to be opened.  If this topic has been beaten to death in the past, then I 
apologize, however as it is a rapidly evolving topic, it warrants repeated 
discussion and evaluation.  My fundamental questions are:

1.    Is InterNIC consistently applying objective criteria in its evaluation 
of requests for the allocation of IP address blocks?
2.    If so, what are the criteria?

The INTERNIC IP ALLOCATION GUIDELINES FOR INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS states 
that "allocation is based on the ISP's 3 - 6 month requirement and other 
information the InterNIC deems necessary".  There is no detail provided (in 
any document I have found) of what other information InterNIC deems to be 
necessary.

I find an apparent conflict between established policy and its actual 
implementation on a day-to-day basis.  CIDR dictates that addresses should 
be aggregated into the largest blocks possible, and that the publishing of 
extraneous routes be eliminated.  In keeping with this, and because of 
often discussed operational considerations, the minimum size of blocks 
routed at the NAPs is growing larger and larger.  To ease participation at 
the national level, you must ensure to the fullest extent possible that 
your address space is routable as a single block.  In order to accomplish 
this, you must obtain either:

This is because the internic is not the one saying /18 or smaller, NSP 
are doing that. Why should the internic get involved?

A.    a single allocation capable of supporting planned growth, or
B.    incremental allocations of *contiguous* blocks

InterNIC's current CIDR allocation practice does not support either of 
these options.  Due to the shortage of *available* IP addresses (there are 
of course millions of allocated but unused addresses floating around), 
InterNIC is using a "slow start" approach which provides incremental 
increases in total address space, with no guarantee that future increments 
will be contiguous.  This means that the only way to maintain efficient 
routing is to engage in repeated renumbering of customer addresses to 
consolidate into increasingly larger blocks.

Yes, well there is no other way of doing it. The days of starting a ISP 
out of your house and in a few years be a Sprint is falling away. ISP's 
will just need to get space from there upstream provider and renumber.

How many times is it reasonable to ask a customer to renumber?  Once is 
certainly reasonable.  Twice is questionable.  More than that and I would 
suspect the customer would renumber all right, but as part of shifting to a 
different ISP.

As many as it takes, This is just something you are going to need to deal 
with. We started with small blocks and had to renumber several times so 
far. It is just part of growing, until you are a large NSP connected to 
all the NAPs you will just need to start will small blocks and renumber 
over and over until you get /18 or smaller.

The day to day implementation of policy by the InterNIC has increasingly 
critical impact on our industry, to the point of controlling who has the 
opportunity to succeed and who does not.  IMHO, it is imperative that:

1.    this function be performed in an understandable manner,
2.    objective criteria be consistently applied
3.    the criteria in use be publicly available, and
4.    there be defined mechanisms for the 'appeal' of decisions made in the 
processing of allocation requests.

Recent experience and observation leads me to conclude that these 
imperatives are perhaps not being met.  Am I all wet????

This is not something that the internic need to be involved with, one day 
a NSP is filtering a /19 and larger the next something different. It is 
not the InterNIC job to get involved with that. ISPs should just get 
space from there upstream provider.


Nathan Stratton           CEO, NetRail, Inc.    Your Gateway to the World!
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