RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 John Crain Kees van Draanen Daniel Karrenberg Mirjam Kuehne RIPE NCC Version 1.0 Document: ripe-186 Updates: ripe-162 See also: ripe-187 1. Scope & Process This memorandum describes the activities to be per- formed by the RIPE NCC and the associated expendi- ture during the year 1999. The companion document "RIPE NCC Charging Scheme 1999" (ripe-187) describes how the necessary revenue is generated. There are formally well defined stages in the cre- ation of this document: It is drafted by the RIPE NCC based on input from RIPE and the users of NCC services. Subsequently it is proposed to the mem- bership by the executive board of the RIPE NCC. The membership discusses it and approves the final ver- sion. Status This version of the document has been produced by the RIPE NCC menagement. It is presented by the executive board for approval by the membership at the Annual General Meeting on October 15th 1998. Comments from the RIPE community to the authors and the board are encouraged. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 1 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ Changes The document itself will not be changed once the process described above is completed. However the last several years of NCC operations experience have shown that revisions are needed during the course of the year. In today's Internet environment it is impossible to plan ahead for more than 15 months as the formal process requires. Any amendments will be made within the formal structure of the RIPE NCC and thus require approval by the RIPE NCC executive board. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 2 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ 2. Principles for NCC Activities The RIPE NCC performs activities for the benefit of the Internet service providers (ISPs) in Europe and the surrounding areas; primarily activities that the ISPs need to organise as a group, although they may be competing with each other in other areas. The RIPE NCC must therefore observe strict neutral- ity and impartiality with respect to individual ser- vice providers. In particular it refrains from activities that are clearly in the domain of the ISPs themselves. Activities are defined, performed, discussed and evaluated in an open manner. Results of activities such as software tools are made available to the public. Budgets as well as actual income and expen- diture are published. Individual data will be kept in confidence where required. For example the amounts of address space allocated and assigned are published as are database entries of individual assignments including the relevant contact data; however the information supporting individual assignment requests is kept in strict confidence. While an activity may result in services being pro- vided to an individual ISP, performing the activity as a whole must benefit the European ISPs as a group. For example address space registration ser- vices are provided to ISPs individually, but the activity as such benefits all ISPs by distributing address space according to common standards as well as maintaining a neutral and accessible registry. It is because of this distinction that this document is structured around activities, rather than ser- vices. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 3 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ 3. Activity Areas Since 1996 all NCC activities have been grouped into four main categories. This section provides a gen- eral description of these categories. The budget itself and the plans for 1999 will be discussed in the following section. Detailed descriptions of all 1999 activities can be found in the appendices. Registration Activities This represents activities related to the NCC's role as Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Europe and the surrounding areas. It includes handling of requests for assignment and allocation of IP address space, management of reverse domain name space asso- ciated with this address space, as well as the auditing and quality control necessary to ensure fair and expedient processing of requests. Also included in this area are training of Local Internet Registries, production of documentation related to Internet registration as well as specific activities to ensure a proper and expedient start of new local IRs. Services performed in this area are only accessible to formally established local IRs contributing to the funding of the NCC. Coordination Activities The activities grouped in this area are quite diverse. Their common purpose is to support the coherent operation of the Internet in the European area. An important activity is the provision of access to the RIPE database which provides informa- tion about address space and routing policies together with the appropriate contact points. Developing and publishing the RIPE database software is also part of this area, as is the provision of information services for ISPs and the general public via the Internet. Operational coordination also falls into this category, as does the production and publication of software tools for such efforts. In order to be effective, the services performed in this area have to be accessible to the general Internet public. Contributors to the funding of the NCC will receive precedence over other users when special support is needed. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 4 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ Administration Activities This area covers all general administrative over- heads which cannot be clearly attributed to a spe- cific activity in one of the other areas. It includes all activities necessary to operate as an organisation as well as the resources needed for charging, billing and the general financial adminis- tration. It also includes the costs associated with organising the RIPE meetings and administrative sup- port for RIPE. New Activities This area represents those activities that are either entirely unforeseen or that have started recently and cannot be fully specified as a regular activity at the time of this writing. The existence of this area gives the NCC the flexibility to react quickly to the rapidly changing needs in today's Internet. Activities in this area are often sug- gested by the appropriate RIPE working group. If the activities turn out to need long term support they may become a regular NCC activity funded by all contributors later. If the activities are short term but substantial or continued support by all contributors is not appropriate, they may be contin- ued as special projects for which funding is sought separately among interested parties. These activities are executed under the guidance of the RIPE working groups. It is assumed that repre- sentatives of the contributors participate actively in these working groups. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 5 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ 4. Growth Plan and Budget The number of local Internet registries is still increasing, as forecast, at a rate of approximately one per calender day. The projections for 1999 are as follows: +-----------+-------------+-----------------------------------------+ | | Observed | Projected | |Registries | Q1 Q2 | Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 | | | 1998 1998 | 1998 1998 1999 1999 1999 1999 | +-----------+-------------+-----------------------------------------+ | Large | 71 73 | 73 73 81 81 81 81 | | Medium | 191 194 | 194 194 242 242 242 242 | | Small | 749 814 | 905 871 918 1009 1100 1191 | +-----------+-------------+-----------------------------------------+ | Total | 1011 1081 | 1172 1138 1241 1332 1423 1514 | +-----------+-------------+-----------------------------------------+ We expect the linear growth of approximately one new local IR per calender day to continue during the year 1999. We also expect that approximately 125 small registries will not have paid their 1998 fees even after several reminders and will thus have to be closed sometime during Q4/98. This brings the relative growth in 1999 to 33%, again the lowest in the NCC's history. However it is still large in absolute terms. Experience has shown that there is little room for improved effi- ciency, especially in registration services. The function of the RIPE is essentially a "third line" support function which deals with the difficult problems and has to provide adequate training to the local IR staff who typically provide the "second line". This necessitates adequate growth of the RIPE NCC in all areas. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 6 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ Professionalism & Legitimacy During 1998 the RIPE NCC has continued to provide its services in a reliable and professional way. Since January 1998 we are also standing on our own as an association after the successful separation from TERENA. The Internet has continued to permeate more and more areas of every economy and society in the RIPE region. As this happens and especially during 1998 the administration of the Internet has become subject of considerable debate. The RIPE NCC has so far stood up well to the public scrutiny. However it is clear that in the future we will have to defend our legitimacy and its processes not only vis-a-vis the membership but also to the world at large including governments, industry and end-users. This means that we will need to achieve even more professionalism and quality in 1999 than in previous years. It also means that we have to actively pro- ject the message of legitimacy and professionalism to the public at large. Therefore the RIPE NCC needs to increase its communications efforts and have professional staff that deals with the media. The requirement for quality management in all parts of the organisation will increase over the coming years and is a necessary ingredient for the profe- sionalism required. Growth & Stability The stability of the NCC is of vital importance to the community in general and the membership in par- ticular. Reliable registration and coordination services are essential for the functioning of the Internet. Resilience and stability however are not free, they cost resources. At the end of 1998 the RIPE NCC will have reached a point in its life-cycle that requires a measurable increment in the adminis- trative area and in organisational costs. A failure to meet this demand would de-stabilise the NCC in the long run. New and Improved Services Finally The RIPE NCC will start IPv6 address space registration services. We expect to provide our share of the operational funding for the new IANA. We will develop new training courses both in the routing registry area and for local IR operations. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 7 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ Budget Based on the growth projection, the required activi- ties the operating costs during 1999 are budgeted as follows. The definition of the activity areas can be found in the previous section. Notes on the indi- vidual areas can be found below. +---------------+------------+------------+-----------+ | | Budget | Budget | Growth | |Activity Area | 1998 % | 1999 % | abs % | +---------------+------------+------------+-----------+ | Registration | 1516 44 | 2011 42 | 495 33 | |Administration | 663 19 | 1230 26 | 567 86 | | Coordination | 972 28 | 1175 25 | 203 21 | | New | 306 9 | 321 7 | 15 5 | +---------------+------------+------------+-----------+ | TOTAL (kECU) | 3457 100 | 4737 100 | 1280 37 | +---------------+------------+------------+-----------+ Registration Activities We will continue to provide the high level of responsiveness we were able to achieve in 1998. In August 1998 the number of opened registration ser- vices tickets already exceeded the 1997 total. Increased automation helps to provide a clear struc- ture to the communications between the NCC and the local IRs. Requests are now automatically checked for completeness and syntactic correctness. This eliminates almost all of the purely clerical work of the RIPE NCC hostmasters. It also saves time as the local IR staff get an immediate feedback on the most common problems. Experience shows that there are little economies of scale left in the registration services area. The RIPE NCC hostmasters now mostly deal with the most difficult cases or support relatively inexperienced local IR staff during their initial learning curve. They also provide training courses for local IRs. This is very much a "third line" support activity. It also requires a high level of scrutiny because of the absolute requirement for fairness and impartial- ity in registration services decisions. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 8 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ In 1999 both work flow and quality management will have to keep step with the expected growth and ensure that peaks in the load lead neither to unac- ceptable delays nor to a reduction in quality. The impartiality and neutrality of the RIPE NCC has to be maintained at all times. Early in the year we will start providing IPv6 address space registration services. The liaison activities with other regional registries and IANA will also to be intensified. We will diversify and improve the training facilities offered to both new and existing local IRs. Existing course materials will be reviewed and new courses will be developed. In total the budget for registration activities remains the highest of all areas in 1999 at 2011kECU 1999 and growth roughly keeps in step with the growth of the number of registries. Administration Activities The administration area shows the largest growth in 1999 and will become the second largest budget line. It is worthy of note however that this line encom- passes more than the "admin" budget line found in other organisations: it includes activities like the organisation of the steadily growing RIPE meetings and the production of internal software used by all other activities. The relatively high cost increase in 1999 is a direct result of both growth and professionalisa- tion. The administration area activities have to meet the needs of a growing international organisa- tion. The RIPE NCC is at a stage in its life-cycle where some noticeable increments are needed. The personnel administration has to care for more and more international staff helping them to settle in the Netherlands quickly and be productive. Hiring from outside the EU is becoming increasingly diffi- cult, but remains essential to maintain diverse international staff drawn from all parts of the RIPE area. The RIPE meetings are getting bigger requir- ing significantly more resources to organise well. The financial administration for a large interna- tional organisation needs considerable resources. In particular the area of accounts receivable, deal- ing with invoicing and tracking payments from 1500 members in more than 80 countries, is expected to require additional resources. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 9 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ Maintaining a stable, growing, innovative and inter- national organisation has a price in itself. Suffi- cient resources are necessary to ensure the required stability. Coordination Activities Coordination activities in 1999 will focus on the implementation and deployment of the new RIPE database software. Database consistency, security and exchange will be addressed with more resources than before. The database software itself is near- ing the end of its useful life and will be replaced. Progress in the past months has not been as expected due to a number of factors including the re-organi- sation of the NCC which included the establishment of a separate group for database activities. The scarcity of qualified personnel and services has also slowed progress. Due to developments at the other regional registries a window of opportunity for harmonisation now exists in the database area. Considerable effort is needed to take full advantage of this. During Q4/98 and all of 1999 the database efforts will be substantially increased in both the new implementation as well as support and short-term enhancements of the current version. Also data con- sistency will be addressed more thoroughly. Considerable resources are needed to ensure that the RIPE NCC is adequately represented in the new IANA corporation and its "Address Supporting Organisa- tion". This also includes providing our fair share of the operational funding to the new IANA. Due to the increased activities in the Internet administra- tion area at both the regional and global level increased resources are necessary to ensure that the RIPE NCC membership's position is adequately repre- sented. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 10 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ New activities We will focus on the deployment phase of the test traffic measurement project and retain sufficient room for unforeseen new activities. The test traf- fic measurement project is not yet mature enough to be offered as a service. The budgeted resources provide for an expansion of the measurement network from currently 20 to 40 test stations early in 1999 as well as for the operation this network and publi- cation of results. We expect the measurement net- work to grow beyond 40 test stations during 1999; however the additional stations will have to be paid for by the participants. We will also further develop the service and prepare a decision to offer it as a service, either a standard service within the standard service fee or as an additional service charged separately. Summary The total growth of the operating costs (37%) is only slightly higher than the growth of registries (33%). We strongly believe that this growth is nec- essary for the success and stability of the RIPE NCC. This plan represents good value for money for the RIPE NCC membership. 5. Challenges The main challenge for the NCC -as for the Internet- remains to manage its growth while remaining stable, reliable and innovative at the same time. We have planned the growth of the NCC as carefully and real- istically as possible while maintaining enough flex- ibility to react to the changing environment. This plan represents a good basis in material resources but the success of the NCC will depend on finding and keeping the people who make it happen. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 11 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ Appendices All activities will be described in appendices grouped activity by area. The descriptions list related activities as well as links to the relevant RIPE working groups. Wherever an activity is start- ing or increasing significantly during the year this is indicated. Finally special budgeting considera- tions are listed where appropriate. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 12 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ Appendix R - Registration Activities This represents activities related to the NCC's role as Regional Internet Registry (IR) for Europe and the surrounding areas. Services performed in this area are only accessible to formally established Local IRs contributing to the funding of the NCC. R1 Regional Internet Registry The RIPE NCC provides Internet registration ser- vices for Europe and surrounding areas; it acts as a Regional Internet Registry. The overall goal of this activity is to provide fair, impartial and stable distribution of Inter- net numbers, especially address space in Europe and the surrounding areas. The specific goals for the distribution of address space are uniqueness of addresses, conservation of the remaining IPv4 address space, aggregation of routing information and registration of network management informa- tion. To determine the resources needed we assume a con- stant linear growth of approximately one new LIR per calender day. This is the growth we have been observing during the 1997 and 1998. Increased automation helps to provide a clear structure to the communications between the NCC and the local IRs. Requests are now automatically checked for complete- ness and syntactic correctness. This eliminates almost all of the purely clerical work of the RIPE NCC hostmasters. It also saves time as the local IR staff get an immediate feedback on the most common problems. Experience shows that there are little economies of scale left in the registration services area. The RIPE NCC hostmasters now mostly deal with the most difficult cases or support relatively inexperienced local IR staff during their initial learning curve. They also provide training courses for local IRs. This is very much a "third line" support activity. It also requires a high level of scrutiny because of the absolute requirement for fairness and impartial- ity in registration services decisions. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 13 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ In 1999 both work flow and quality management will have to keep step with the expected growth and ensure that peaks in the load lead neither to unac- ceptable delays nor to a reduction in quality. The impartiality and neutrality of the RIPE NCC has to be maintained at all times. We assume no significant shifts in the resources needed to perform activities R.1.1 - R.1.5 reliably. The basic procedures did not change. Common to all of registration activities is liaison with the RIPE Local IR WG about general application of procedures and policies. R1.1 First Address Space Assignment Description: The RIPE NCC will give special attention to requests from LIRs for their first address space. It will help to make the first assign- ment and allocate an aggregatable range of addresses for further assignments. Goal: This will help Local IRs to successfully process their first request and to have a bet- ter understanding of the procedures for fur- ther requests. It will also help to build a good working relationship between the RIPE NCC and the Local IR. Furthermore it will enable neutral and impartial treatment of all Local IR's. Related Activities: R1.8 RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 14 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ R1.2 Assignment Approval Description: Some IP address requests require approval from the RIPE NCC, specially when they are above a threshold size. The RIPE NCC will evaluate these IP address requests. Sometimes local IRs will also request the opinion of the NCC about assignments even when it is not strictly required. The RIPE NCC will further- more give recommendation and guidelines for future requests. Goal: This activity will ensure uniform application of policies and assignment criteria by all Local IRs and will help to make a Local IR familiar with request evaluation. It will sup- port Local IRs in their operations and help them to process increasing request sizes. It will also enable fair operations of all Local IRs. Related Activities: R1.7, R1.8 RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 15 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ R1.3 PI Assignment Description: The RIPE NCC will process all requests for PI (provider independent) address space submitted by Local IRs. Goal: This activity will prevent fragmentation of the local IR's allocated address space by making the PI assignment from an address pool managed by the RIPE NCC. This will promote aggregation of routing information. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Local IR WG R1.4 Address Allocation Description: The RIPE NCC will allocate address space to Local IRs for further assignment to end users. This activity will also contain auditing of assignments made from previous allocations. Tools to support the allocation process and to ensure best aggregation possible will be enhanced. During 1998 the amount of these requests has decreased further, a positive development. Goal: This activity will help to ensure fair dis- tribution of address space. It will also support the efficient use of address space in order to conserve the remaining IPv4 address space and to aggregate routing information. Related Activities: R1.7, R1.8 RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 16 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ R1.5 AS Number Assignments Description: The RIPE NCC will assign AS numbers according to global and local policies. It will register these numbers and the associated routing poli- cies. In 1999 this activity will require some extra resources because the format for specifying routing policies is expected to change to the one developed by the IETF rps working group. Documentation and training materials will be updated and an additional training course developed. Goal: This activity ensures uniqueness of AS numbers and helps in collecting data for the Routing Registry. Also this activity helps to prevent unnecessary increases the number of autonomous systems which are visible in global Internet routing. Related Activities: C1.6 RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 17 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ R1.6 Reverse DNS Delegation Description: The RIPE NCC will delegate reverse DNS zones for the address ranges allocated or assigned via the RIPE NCC. In order to provide this service the RIPE NCC will provide reliable name servers and try to avoid pollution of the DNS in the zones delegated to the RIPE NCC. Therefore the RIPE NCC will check all zones under its responsibility for proper set-up and functioning. This process has been more fully automated in 1998. This frees up resources in 1999 to check and improve the quality of the reverse zones, a process which requires cooperation from local DNS operators. Goal: This activity will be necessary to ensure proper address-to-name mapping for addresses allocated to the RIPE NCC. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 18 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ R1.7 Consistency & Auditing Description: The RIPE NCC will actively check the qual- ity and validity of registry data. This will also include the production of statistics on address space usage. In order to ensure a fair address space distri- bution, the RIPE NCC will regularly check that assignment guidelines are applied equally. This activity is separated from the other reg- istration activities because it needs to be defined and executed somewhat independently from the day-to-day processing of requests. Of course consistency checking and auditing will still be performed within other activities as well. This particular activity is to pro- vide the parts that have to be done indepen- dently of processing individual requests. Goal: This activity will promote consistent and fair application of assignment criteria w.r.t. con- servation of address space and aggregation of routing information. This activity will also help to identify parts of the procedures them- selves that cause problems. These observations will be reported back to the RIPE Local IR working group for further investigation and improvement of the procedures. Related Activities: all registration activities RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 19 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ R1.8 Registration Activities Quality Management Description: Because of the size of registration activities and the continuing growth it is important to systematically monitor the quality of reg- istration activities within the NCC. This becomes even more important as the quality and fairness of industry self-regulation activities in the Internet environment comes under increased scrutiny from many directions includ- ing governments and consumers. The NCC will continuously develop quality mea- sures for registration activities and monitor them. Part of this activity will be to give careful attention to customer questions and suggestions. This will also include propos- als for possible automation and other improvements of internal procedures. Eventu- ally this activity may lead to seeking a formal quality management certification. Of course quality control will still be per- formed within other registration activities as well. This particular activity is to provide the parts that have to be done independently of processing individual requests. This will also be managed and executed separately from day-to-day request processing. Goal: This activity will help to maintain a high quality of services provided. This will increase the credibility and legitimacy of the industry self-regulation process. Related Activities: All registration activities and related administrative support activities. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 20 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ R2 Initial Contact for new Local IRs The initial support for newly established registries is independent from other registration activities. It is not initiated by a request sent to the RIPE NCC but is part of the process to open a Local IR. During this phase additional clarification and explanation is involved to make the new Local IR familiar with all procedures necessary to operate an Internet registry. R2.1 Initial Contact & Registry Setup Description: The RIPE NCC will provide initial support to Local IRs during their start up phase. It will support and provide information to potential Local IRs. Goal: This activity will support new Local IRs during their start up phase, so that they feel com- fortable with tools, procedures and guidelines. It will also give potential Local IRs enough information so that they can make an informed choice as to whether become a Local IR or not. Related Activities: R2.2 RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 21 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ R2.2 Training Courses Description: The RIPE NCC will develop and deliver Training Courses for Local IRs. The course material will include IP address assignment and alloca- tion procedures and policies, delegation of reverse domains and how to you use the RIPE database. In 1999 the RIPE NCC will perform a major revi- sion of the course materials. We will also develop additional courses such as a 'refresher' for already experienced local IR personnel as needed. Goal: The goal of this activity is to make new Local IRs familiar with procedures and policies as well as to keep established Local IRs up to date with new guidelines and developments. This will facilitate smooth operations between the RIPE NCC and the Local IRs. By establish- ing a consistent application of policies we will also enable fair distribution of address space among the community. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 22 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ R3 Liaison & Coordination Description: In order to execute its activities the RIPE NCC has to act as liaison and coordinate with a variety of organisations as well as track the activities of others. Examples of such organi- sations are IANA, IETF, RIPE, NANOG, ARIN, and APNIC. It is often difficult to attribute liaison and coordination resources to specific activities. Therefore it is an activity in its own right. Goal: To keep the necessary liaison and coordination relationships with other relevant organisa- tions. Budgeting: Costs for this activity are split evenly between the registration and coordination bud- get lines. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 23 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ Appendix C - Coordination Activities The activities grouped in this area are quite diverse. Their common purpose is to support the coherent operation of the Internet in Europe and the surrounding areas. In order to be effective, the services performed in this area must be accessible to users of the Inter- net and the general public. RIPE NCC members how- ever, will receive precedence when special support is required. C1 RIPE Database Maintenance and Development Description: The RIPE NCC will assure the reliability of the RIPE database and extend its functionality as needed. The quality of data will be improved, both by improving consistency and providing reliable security mechanisms. C1 activities include the NCC work related to the RIPE database software and the quality of registry data. Goal: The RIPE database is the core software on which the Regional IP Registry and the RIPE Routing Registry are based. Reliability and good func- tionality of the RIPE database is essential for the NCC and local IRs. This set of activities is designed to continue consistent support and provide a reliable service both in the short and long term, as well as to continue develop- ments according to the needs of the RIPE commu- nity. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Database WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 24 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C1.1 User Support and Software Maintenance Description: The RIPE NCC will manage the role mailbox, and address user questions in a timely fashion. The NCC will also perform basic software maintenance activi- ties including bug fixes and minor modifica- tions. At the same time, the RIPE NCC will pro- vide robust portable releases with fixed bugs and new features. It will also work on main- taining and improving user documentation. Goal: This activity is intended to provide a timely response to user enquiries. It will also help assure the smooth running of the registry sys- tem. By maintaining public releases, RIPE NCC hopes to encourage all registries making use of the software and acquiring the newest improve- ments in a timely fashion. This encourages data exchange and cooperation among registries. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Database WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 25 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C1.2 New Database Features Description: The RIPE NCC will design and implement new database features as requested by the user com- munity. The NCC will perform the development work based on the priorities established in the appropriate working groups. Goal: The purpose of this activity is to provide new functionality as the RIPE database user commu- nity expresses the need for it. Related Activities: C1.1 RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Database WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 26 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C1.3 Database Security Description: The RIPE NCC will document, design, and imple- ment security mechanisms for the RIPE Database. The mechanisms will be designed to allow proper authorisation (what is a user permitted to do), authentication (is he/she who we think he/she is?), signing and integrity (did the object change somehow?). The NCC will continue to deploy training courses for members of the RIPE database commu- nity in which they can learn how they can put the new mechanisms to effective use. The RIPE NCC will continue to work with the db- sec Task Force to guide this activity. Goal: This activity is intended to provide mecha- nisms which allow users to protect the data they submit in the RIPE database, and which allow those who query the data to treat it with an appropriate degree of trust. The mechanisms must be selected to be widely available. They should not inconvenience those users who do not wish to make use of them in any way. Related Activities: C1.1 C1.2 RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Database Security Task Force, RIPE Database WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 27 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C1.4 Consistency & Accuracy Description: The RIPE NCC will continue working to prevent inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the RIPE Database contents using syntax checks, modify- ing contact reference mechanisms, and educating users. In the meantime, the RIPE NCC will perform database cleanup activities to improve the quality of data already in the RIPE database. This will include reporting problems to con- tacts where possible, and providing tools which enable users to clean up their data. The NCC will also produce regular "State of the Database Reports" in order to monitor the qual- ity of data over time. Specifically the RIPE NCC will concentrate on the consistency of data in the routing registry. Goal: The value of the RIPE database for its users depends on the quality of data in the database. The quality of the data depends on the accuracy of the data in each object as well as a consis- tent reference mechanism, which leads to the contact objects. The goal of this activity is to monitor and improve the consistency and accuracy of the data maintained in the RIPE database. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Database WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 28 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C1.5 Database Availability and Exchange Description: The RIPE NCC will provide access to the RIPE Database via whois servers, and by supporting other sites in mirroring the data. Support will be given to local IRs in setting up secondary database servers, for example. Mean while, the RIPE NCC will actively pursue and coordinate data exchange both with other regional IP reg- istries and other Routing Registries. Goal: This activity is intended to enable RIPE database users to acquire the information they need in a timely fashion, and to help those outside the RIPE region acquire information in the RIPE database as easily as possible. This is essential for both the IP and the Routing registries. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Database WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 29 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C1.6 Routing Registry Tool Deployment and Training Description: The RIPE NCC will continue the incorporation of RPSL extensions in the RIPE Database code and implement the next transition steps from ripe-181 to RPSL. The RIPE NCC will work to create new RR tools and in particular support the RA toolset. These tools will be made available to members of the RIPE community. The NCC will design and deploy a training course to teach the RPSL language and the use of the RR tools in configuring routers and examining policies and routing in the Internet. Goal: Based on RIPE work the IETF is developing a new standard language for the Routing Registry: RPSL. RPSL can be used to express a number of routing policies, which are commonly used, but cannot be described using ripe-181. Meanwhile useful RR tools are currently being developed elsewhere. In particular the RA toolset can be used to define routing registry objects, and to evaluate currently registered objects in the process. There is also a tool called "rtconfig", which allows router configu- rations to be generated from the contents of the routing registry. The goal of this activity is to enable members of the RIPE community to exploit RPSL and the new RR tools. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Routing WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 30 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C1.7 Redesign & Reimplement RIPE Database Code Description: The RIPE NCC will concentrate on the design and schema of the new database. Later in the year the implementation of the new database is planned. Goal: The RIPE Database is the very heart of the European Internet Registry and many other RIPE NCC activities. It has become an essential resource for European ISPs. Thus the reliabil- ity of the database software is essential. Moreover due to the changing needs in the Internet world, extensibility of the code is essential. The aim of this activity is to re- implement the RIPE Database software in order to produce a stable software base, which can be reliably extended for future needs. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Database WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 31 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C2 Information Services Description: The RIPE NCC will provide services and techni- cal infrastructure to facilitate exchange of information within the RIPE community and RIPE working groups in particular. The RIPE NCC will introduce activities to continue developing and improving on the external representation and image of the organisation. This includes the management of mailing lists, and provision of the www.ripe.net web site. Moreover content of the web and ftp sites will be maintained and extended. Goal: The RIPE NCC is known to be a neutral source of authoritative information on the Internet in Europe and beyond. This activity is designed to ensure that it continues to be a useful resource to the ISPs and other interested par- ties in Europe and beyond. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 32 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C2.1 Mailing List Management Description: The RIPE NCC will maintain high quality mail- ing lists for exchanging information among mem- bers of the RIPE community. Effort will be spent to prevent spam (unsolicited advertising) on the lists, to improve the quality of the address lists in order to minimise bounces, and to support subscribers with problems. The pro- cessing of mailing list traffic will be con- stantly monitored. Goal: The mailing lists maintained by the RIPE NCC have a history of constructive and concise dis- cussions on issues of import to the RIPE commu- nity. Mailing list maintainers are facing new challenges ranging from unsolicited messages (spam) to increased size and usage of lists. This activity is intended to maintain the qual- ity of the mailing lists in the face of increased usage and new challenges. This serves to facilitate discussion and consensus forming in the RIPE community. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 33 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C2.2 Maintenance of Information Services Description: The RIPE NCC will maintain an ftp and a WWW server at ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ and http://www.ripe.net/ respectively and the accompanying role mailbox to provide help and information to users. This includes the following detailed activities: Re- structure the information on the WWW server providing the best structure of information for ease of use to visitors of the site. The NCC will also monitor the content of the servers to be sure it is accurate and assure a consistent and user friendly style. Goal: The purpose of this activity is to assure that the information and services on the RIPE NCC servers are up to date and working well and that user needs are responded to in a timely fashion. Related Activities: C2.3 RIPE Working Group Advising: all ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 34 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C2.3 Extension of Information Services Description: The RIPE NCC web site will be extended to pro- vide new website services such as automated forms for IP requests and on-line payment mech- anisms. Goal: This activity is intended to provide new tools and services as needed, in particular for local IRs. Related Activities: C2.2 RIPE Working Group Advising: all C2.4 External Communication Description: The RIPE NCC will publish an Annual Report and distribute the report to its membership as well as to any other interested parties. The RIPE NCC will continue to report about its activi- ties to its membership, the RIPE Community and the general public both on the network and at RIPE meetings. The RIPE NCC will monitor press clippings as well as produce press releases, when necessary, regarding issues concerning the operations of the RIPE NCC. Goal: This activity will provide the RIPE NCC member- ship and other interested parties with informa- tion about the ongoing RIPE NCC activities. Related Activities: A1.1, A1.2 ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 35 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C3 DNS Coordination The RIPE NCC does not provide domain name registra- tion services. It does however provide DNS coordina- tion and support activities as well as registration of reverse address mapping domain registrations within the in-addr.arpa domain. C3.1 European Root Name Servers Description: The RIPE NCC will support the operation of the root name servers located in Europe and the surrounding area. In particular it will operate the server currently located at the LINX in London (k.rootservers.net). Goal: Those few DNS name servers serving the "." (root) zone are critical elements of the Inter- net infrastructure that should be operated in a neutral and professional way. The goal of this activity is to ensure that this happens. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE DNS WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 36 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ C3.2 Secondary DNS Service Description: The RIPE NCC will provide secondary name ser- vice and limited support to those country TLD administrators that wish to use it. The RIPE NCC will assist IANA in the administration of those TLDs as described in RFC1591. Goal: Many users in Europe depend on DNS name servers serving the zones of two letter ISO3166 country code top level domains. Name service for these zones should be reliable. New coun- tries should be supported to establish their country code TLDs. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE DNS WG C3.3 DNS Hostcount Description: The RIPE NCC will provide monthly statistics on the number of hosts connected to the Inter- net in Europe and surrounding areas. The statistics are gathered in collaboration with numerous organisations doing local counts per country TLD. Additional hostcount statistics will be introduced to incorporate missing TLDs in the RIPE NCC service region. Goal: The goal of this activity is to collect and publish uniform time series data about the growth of the Internet in the region. It con- tinues a time series started in October 1990. The information is considered very useful by organisations operating in this region. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE DNS WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 37 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ Appendix A - Administration Activities This area covers the publication of regular reports by the RIPE NCC. Administrative support for RIPE as well as general administrative overheads which can- not be clearly attributed to a specific activity are also included in appendix A. A1.1 External Reporting Description: The RIPE NCC will keep contributors and other interested parties informed about its activi- ties. This will take the form of constantly updated statistics published on the NCC web site and regular reporting to the RIPE NCC mem- bership. The quarterly reports will be more topical and smaller than those hitherto pub- lished with the bulk of the statistical infor- mation moved to the web site. Goal: This activity will provide NCC contributors and other interested parties with open, detailed information as to the RIPE NCC activities. A1.2 RIPE Meeting Description: The RIPE NCC will provide administrative and technical support for the RIPE meetings. These meetings are taking place three times a year. Actual costs regarding venue, equipment hire, and sponsorship and the charging of an atten- dance fee will recoup catering. Goal: Support of an infrastructure whereby the RIPE meetings can be held. Guidance and advice from the RIPE WGs is invaluable to the NCC and therefore the meetings are essential. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 38 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ A1.3 RIPE NCC Association Support Description: The RIPE NCC will provide administrative sup- port for the RIPE NCC association, especially for the functioning of the association's formal bodies. Goal: Smooth operation of the legal framework of the NCC and good representation of the members. ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 39 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ Appendix N - New Activities This area represents those activities that are either unforeseen or cannot be fully specified at the time of this writing. The existence of this area gives the NCC the flexibility to react quickly to the rapidly changing needs in today's Internet. Activities in this area are often suggested by the appropriate RIPE working group. By nature new activ- ities are hard to specify in detail and priorities can change quickly. Activities may be dropped or added as necessary. Priorities and details will be discussed intensively with the relevant RIPE working groups. The activity descriptions below are there- fore more of a subjective statement of direction rather than a fixed plan of action. In particular some of the ideas below have not yet been fully dis- cussed in the relevant RIPE working groups. N1 Unforeseen New Activities Description: The RIPE NCC will react to unforeseen urgent requirements for new activities as necessary. Goal: In the past the NCC has been requested to start a fair number of unforeseen activities at short notice. Many of them have been successful because this possibility has been designed into the activity plans since the NCC's inception. RIPE Working Group Advising: any ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 40 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ N2 Test Traffic Measurement Description: The RIPE NCC will compile a 'traffic test sta- tion' to inject, absorb and measure test traf- fic packets. The RIPE NCC will promote deploy- ment of the station by interested parties as well as collect the measurement data, verify, process and make it publicly available in vari- ous forms. Note that this data is different from the routing data (N3) and needs to be col- lected at different points. There are many uses for such independently col- lected and verified data. A near real time stream of measurement data can help to diagnose connectivity problems. Processed statistics can be used to manage and demonstrate quality of ISPs and the Internet as a whole. The key to this is the independent and impar- tial collection and publishing of the data. Also essential is good documentation about what is being measured and what is not. This activity has been started during 1997 in consultation with the relevant RIPE working groups and in coordination with the IPPM WG of the IETF. A prototype implementation and test deployment is expected to occur in 1997. During 1999, a second series of test-boxes will be installed. In the second half of the year we will concentrate on plans for transition to a regular activity which could possibly be funded through its own charging system. Goal: This activity is intended to help diagnose real time connectivity problems. Collection of connectivity data needs to be done by a neutral entity. The goal of this activity is to help establish measures for Internet quality. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE EOF WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 41 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1999 Crain, van Draanen, Karrenberg, Kuehne ____________________________________________________ N3 Routing Information Service Description: This activity has been described in the 1997 activity plan. Due to time and resource con- straints there has been very little progress. In 1998 we do not plan to increase our efforts here but rather concentrate on the test traffic measurement activity. However we have no indi- cations that the requirement for this activity has ceased to exist. Therefore we keep it in the plan with just enough resources allocated to track any developments that might occur elsewhere. Should circumstances change we will step up this activity. Goal: The purpose of this activity is to provide access to the routing state at strategic points both in near real time and for selected times in the past and to enable time series analysis of this data. RIPE Working Group Advising: RIPE Routing WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-186.txt v1.0 Page 42