Re: [sig-policy] prop-050: IPv4 address transfers

[Geoff Huston <gih@apnic.net>]

Scott,

Thank you for your comments.

You phrase in objective text what I would see as some interpretations 
and perspectives. While it is clear to me that you hold these views and 
perspectives, it is not clear to me that these are necessarily objective 
truths.

There is considerable uncertainty on the true capabilities of the 
routing system and its not entirely clear to me what limitations exist 
in the routing system as distinct from various impressions of what such 
limits may be. I would think it less than entirely appropriate to base 
policy on such perceptions of the nature of the inter-domain routing 
system and its capabilities, and even less appropriate to phrase current 
policy on perceptions of what such limits may have been some years ago.

What appears to me is that we are in a situation where:

We are facing a transition to IPv6 that requires the operation of a dual 
stack environment where both future and existing deployments require 
access to both IPv4 and IPv6 address space.

    http://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2007-08/dualstack.html

We are facing a transition that is complex

    http://www.iepg.org/2007-07-ietf69/070722.v6-op-reality.pdf

This transition probably will take an extended period of time, and 
probably will take much longer than the anticipated time remaining in 
the unallocated Ipv4 address space pool

    http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/

So we can anticipate that new network deployments will take place after 
this pool exhaustion time, but they will still need IPv4 addresses in 
order to support dual stack operation as part of the overall IPv6 
transition. But the RIRs will be unable to assist them, as their address 
pools are empty at that time. So, in the absence of alternatives, its 
likely that we will see various forms of IPv4 address transfer take 
place in order to meet these continuing demands for address space during 
this dual stack transition period.

Now, in terms of registry policy, can either allow such transfers to be 
recorded in the registry system or we can choose to deny access to the 
registry system. The registry system underpins the concepts of 
uniqueness, consistency, coherency, accuracy and integrity of the 
network's address plan. If the registry cannot fulfil this function then 
the utility of the entire network is severely undermined. Chaos in 
addresses is chaos in the network.

The extent to which other policies can be intertwined with this measure 
of transfer registration is uncertain. The higher the barrier of entry 
to the registry the higher the temptation to avoid registration 
altogether, raising the potential risks referred to above.

The transfer policy proposal being proposed in the APNIC policy forum is 
deliberately phrased as one that is simple and direct, and it tries to 
get to the heart of what needs to be undertaken in terms of roles of the 
registry in an environment where the associated address allocation 
function has finished through address pool exhaustion, yet the demand 
for uniqueness, consistency, coherency, accuracy and integrity in the 
registry function remains. In such an environment the registry needs to 
be in a position to accurately reflect the reality of address 
distribution. For that reason the policy proposal is quite limited in 
its scope, as it addresses quite directly the concept of including in 
the policy framework a capability to admit access to the registry in 
order to record address transfers.

regards,

   Geoff Huston