[sig-policy] prop-101-v002: Removing multihoming , requirement for IPv6
Version 002 of the proposal "prop-101: Removing multihoming
requirement for IPv6 portable assignments" has been sent to
the Policy SIG for review. It will be presented at the Policy SIG at
APNIC 33 in New Delhi, India, on 1 March 2012.
Information about this and other policy proposals is available from:
http://www.apnic.net/policy/proposals
This new version of the proposal reflects feedback from the community
received on the Policy SIG mailing list:
- Section 4D has been altered to reference the Applied HD-Ratio
Threshold specified in section 5.3.1 of the APNIC IPv6 policy as
the basis for the allocation of portable assignments larger than
/48.
- Section 4F has been deleted, it having been suggested that this
clause was unnecessary.
You are encouraged you to express your views on the proposal:
- Do you support or oppose this proposal?
- Is there anything in the proposal that is not clear?
- What changes could be made to this proposal to make it more
effective?
Regards,
Andy, Skeeve, and Masato
------------------------------------------------------------------------
prop-101-v001: Removing multihoming requirement for IPv6 portable
assignments
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: David Woodgate
<dwoodgate5 at gmail dot com>
1. Introduction
----------------
This a proposal to change the "IPv6 address allocation and assignment
policy" to allow portable (that is, provider independent or PI)
assignments of IPv6 address blocks to be made by APNIC to any
organization with due justification and payment of standard fees,
removing the current requirement that the requestor is or plans to be
multihomed.
2. Summary of the current problem
----------------------------------
Current APNIC policy only permits portable assignments of IPv6 addresses
to be made to an organization "if it is currently multihomed or plans to
be multihomed within three months." [1] This requirement may
unnecessarily complicate the implementation of IPv6 in some networks
that are large or complex and use static assignment of addresses. It is
therefore proposed to remove this requirement.
IPv6 models tend to assume widespread assignment of registered IPv6
addresses to equipment throughout a network; so if provider assigned
IPv6 addresses have been used in an organization's network, then any
change of ISP would require a renumbering of the entire network. Such
renumbering may be feasible if the network is small or dynamically
assigned (for example, through use of prefix-delegation), but
renumbering a large, statically-assigned network would be a significant
operational challenge, and may not be practically possible.
Although it is likely that many large networks would be multihomed,
there will be technical or commercial reasons why some will not be;
currently those networks cannot obtain portable IPv6 assignments from
APNIC, and would need to use assignments from their ISPs, and accept the
associated difficulties of future renumbering if they do so. This
consideration and complexity could significantly delay IPv6 use by the
affected organisations, which is not desirable.
There is a risk that removing the multihoming requirement could cause a
significant increase in demand for portable assignments, which in turn
could cause the Internet routing tables to grow beyond manageable
levels. It is not feasible to quickly generate any realistic model of
likely demand increase which would arise from the proposed policy
change, but it is argued that any such increase would only be of a scale
to produce a manageable impact on global routing, for reasons including:
- Organizations would only be likely to seek portable addressing if
they believed it were essential for their operations, as provider
assigned IPv6 addressing would be likely to be offered
automatically and at no additional cost with their Internet
services from their ISP;
- APNIC membership fees would be expected to naturally discourage
unnecessary requests, as these would be a far greater cost than
that for provider assigned addressing;
- Many or most organizations that require portable addressing will
be multihomed, so the demand increase caused by removing the
multihomed requirement should be small;
- Only a limited set of an ISP's products is likely to allow
customers to use portable assignments if they are singly-homed.
3. Situation in other RIRs
---------------------------
APNIC is now the only RIR remaining with an absolute requirement for
multihoming for portable address assignments.
AfriNIC: The "Policy for IPv6 ProviderIndependent (PI) Assignment for
End-Sites" [2] does not mention any requirement for multihoming;
ARIN: Section 6.5.8 of the "ARIN Number Resource Policy Manual" [3] only
identifies multihoming as one of several alternative criteria for direct
IPv6 assignment to end-user organizations;
LACNIC: There is no mention of multihoming anywhere in the IPv6 section
(Section 4) of the current LACNIC Policy Manual (v1.8 - 07/12/2011) [4].
RIPE: The latest version (RIPE-545 [5]) published in January 2012 of the
"IPv6 Address Allocation and Assignment Policy" does not mention
multihoming, removing the requirement that existed in previous versions
of the document.
4. Details
-----------
It is proposed that section 5.9.1 of APNIC's "IPv6 address allocation
and assignment policy" (apnic-089-v010) is rewritten to remove the
absolute multihoming requirement for portable assignments, and to
incorporate the following conditions:
A. Portable IPv6 assignments are to be made only to organizations
that have either joined APNIC as members or have signed the
non-member agreement, under the standard terms & conditions and
paying the standard fees applicable for their respective category.
B. An organization will be eligible for a portable assignment if they
have previously justified an IPv4 portable assignment from APNIC.
C. A request for an IPv6 portable assignment will need to be
accompanied by a reasonable technical justification indicating why
IPv6 addresses from an ISP or other LIR are unsuitable.
D. The minimum IPv6 portable assignment to any organization is to be
an address block of /48. A portable assignment of a larger block
(that is, a block with a prefix mask less than /48) may be made:
(i) If it is needed to ensure that the HD-ratio for the planned
network assignments from the block remains below the applied
HD-ratio threshold specified in Section 5.3.1 of the APNIC
IPv6 policy [6], or;
(ii) If addressing is required for 2 or more of the organization's
sites operating distinct and unconnected networks.
E. In order to minimise routing table impacts:
(a) Only one IPv6 address block is to be given to an organization
upon an initial request for a portable assignment; subnets of
this block may be assigned by the organization to its
different sites if needed;
(b) It is recommended that the APNIC Secretariat applies sparse
allocation methodologies so that any subsequent requests from
an organization for additional portable addressing would be
accommodated where possible through a change of prefix mask of
a previous assignment (for example, 2001:db8:1000::/48 ->
2001:db8:1000::/44), rather than through allocation of a new
prefix. An additional prefix should only be allocated where it
is not possible to simply change the prefix mask.
(c) Any subsequent request for an additional portable assignment
to an organization must be accompanied by information
demonstrating:
(i) Why an additional portable assignment is required, and why
an assignment from from an ISP or other LIR cannot be used
for this purpose instead;
(ii) That the use of previous portable IPv6 allocations
generated the minimum possible number of global routing
announcements and the maximum aggregation of that block;
(iii) How the additional assignment would be managed to
minimise the growth of the global IPv6 routing table.
5. Pros/Cons
-------------
Advantages:
- This proposal would provide access to portable IPv6 addresses for
all organizations with valid needs, removing a potential impediment
to industry standard IPv6 addressing for large singly-homed networks
- This change would align APNIC with the policies of all other RIRs on
portable assignments
Disadvantages:
- There would be a risk of an unmanageably large increase in global
IPv6 routing table size and APNIC workload if there were to be a
substantial and widespread increase in demand for portable
assignments arising from the removal of the multihoming requirement
- But demand is expected to be limited by the requirements specified
in section 4 for justifications and APNIC standard fees, as well as
other industry factors such as the capability of Internet services
to support portable addressing.
6. Effect on APNIC
-------------------
The impact of this proposal on the APNIC Secretariat would depend on the
increase of demand for portable assignments. Even if demand is
eventually large, it is unlikely that there will be an significant
change in hostmaster workloads for a long time because of the slow rate
of take up of IPv6, and so there should be sufficient time to identify
and take steps to modify policies and processes if necessary to manage
the increase.
7. Effect on NIRs
------------------
This proposal specifically applies to portable assignments made by
APNIC. It would be the choice of each NIR as to whether they would adopt
a similar policy.
8. References:
---------------
[1] Section 5.9.1, IPv6 address allocation and assignment policy,
http://www.apnic.net/policy/ipv6-address-policy#5.9
[2] http://www.afrinic.net/docs/policies/AFPUB-2007-v6-001.htm
[3] https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#six58
[4] http://www.lacnic.net/en/politicas/manual5.html
[5] http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-545
[6] Section 5.3.1, IPv6 address allocation and assignment policy,
http://www.apnic.net/policy/ipv6-address-policy#5.3