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APNIC Annual Report 1998

Contents

[ Contents| Section 1| Section 2| Section 3| Section 4| Section 5 ]

3. Member Services

3.1. Resource status

APNIC is the custodian of Internet address space that it has received from IANA in five separate allocations since 1994. Table 8 sets out the ranges of address space that APNIC has been allocated.

*To date, APNIC has been using this address space allocation for special short term purposes, such as conferences, exhibitions (with the exception of one allocation that was made prior to APNIC receiving the address space).

The following table (table 9) shows the proportions of APNIC's total pool of address space allocated and unallocated since January 1996. (Please note that APNIC no longer reserves address space within the unallocated ranges.)

The rate of address space allocations has continued to remain consistent over the last year, following a roughly linear trend, as shown in figure 4.

Projections made in 1997 suggested that APNIC would consume approximately 7,000,000 addresses during 1998. In fact, APNIC allocated considerably fewer addresses during that period: in the order of 5,000,000, an amount that lies between a /10 and a /9 in prefix terms. The difference between predicted and actual amounts can be linked to a smaller increase in membership numbers than was projected in 1997. It may also relate to the increase in the number of organisations using private address space.

Figure 5 shows APNIC allocations by month from January 1996 until January 1999. (Please note, the significant peaks represent allocations to confederations.)

The average amount of address space allocated per month for the past three calendar years is as follows:

• 1996 ¾ 761,151 per month
• 1997 ¾ 384,128 per month
• 1998 ¾ 368,085 (between a /13 and a /14) per month

These monthly averages show a noticeable decline in allocation patterns since 1996, when the requirement for address space conservation was less rigorously applied and corresponding technical solutions (such as variable length subnetting techniques) were less advanced. Again, as noted above, the increase in use of private address space may also be a contributing factor.

Figure 6 shows the total amount of address space allocated according to member domains.

Table 10 compares the geographical distribution for 1997 and 1998. The data show very little change overall.

No non-member assignments were made during 1998. This may be attributable to the impact of the fee structure on non-members.

Table 11 sets out the Autonomous System (AS) number ranges that APNIC has been allocated by the IANA, organised according to date of allocation.

Table 12 shows the proportions of APNIC's total pool of AS numbers allocated and unallocated.

Of the total 4,457 AS numbers in the global routing table, 424 (approximately 10%) are from within APNIC allocated ranges (seen via a BGP multihop peering between APNIC router in Japan at NSPIXP-II and Brisbane).

Figure 7 reflects the constant growth rate of AS number assignments (cumulative depiction).

Figure 8 shows the geographical distribution of AS number allocations. The most significant change since 1997 is a 9% increase in distribution to the .au domain. All other countries show modest growth.

AS assignments to non-members

3.2. Activities

Introduction

During the first quarter of 1998, fifty percent of core Member Services resources were diverted into tasks associated with the relocation of APNIC to Brisbane. The tasks included hiring personnel; arranging the office fit out; and assisting with business, financial, and legal matters. Because the relevant staff resided locally, involvement in these activities was more cost effective than arranging such matters from Japan.

Migration of Member Services

APNIC Member Services were provided full-time from Tokyo, Japan until the second quarter of 1998. To ensure seamless transfer of responsibility and operations to Brisbane, Australia, much staff time was spent in training related to hostmaster workflow processes, policies, and procedures. APNIC completed the migration of Member Services data in early June 1998.

The migration of existing APNIC tools, however, raised a number of concerns, and further development of these tools has been temporarily suspended. Basic requirements for automation and integration have been specified, but full deployment is dependent on a further allocation of resources. This matter is being investigated in consultation with the Technical Services department.

Request tracking system

Member Services evaluated a prototype request tracking system in the early months of 1998; however, this system displayed insufficient functionality for the hostmaster workflow requirements. Subsequently, an alternative was installed after evaluation identified it as being suitable for current needs and capable of future development and integration.

The request tracking system assigns a ticket number to all new requests and enables accurate logging of a request lifecycle. APNIC commenced gathering data from this system on 1 July 1998; relevant statistics are presented in the following sections. (Further details of the request tracking system are provided in the Technical Services section of this report.)

Requests entering the request tracking system are automatically assigned an 'area' and manually assigned an 'owner'. The area types within the Member Services department fall into the following classifications:

• ISP (ISP requests)
• Confederation (confederation requests)
• Second-opinion (second opinion requests)
• AS (AS number requests)
• End-user (end-user requests)
• Non (non-member requests)
• Hostmaster (any email which does not fit into one of the classifications above)

During the seven-month period from 1 July 1998 to 1 February 1999, Member Services received a total of 2,392 new tickets, an average of seventeen new requests per working day. Figure 10 shows the total number of ticketed requests during that period, separated by classification.

Analysis of the ticketing data reveals that second opinion requests are the most common type of request submitted to the APNIC mailbox, followed by ISP requests. The number of general enquiries received by the hostmaster mailbox confirms APNIC's position as an important source of information for IP address related matters.

Figures 11 – 14 show the percentage of requests received from different domains for the request types 'ISP', 'hostmaster', 'second opinion', and 'AS', respectively. (Please note, there are small percentages throughout these pie charts showing requests from the .int domain. In fact, all such requests came from one organisation in Taiwan.)

The majority of requests received are from the .net domain, with the .com and .au domains also submitting a high percentage of the total. It is worth noting that countries served by a National Internet Registry record low request rates.

According to APNIC's assignment window policy, Internet Registries wishing to make an assignment that exceeds a predetermined size, must send APNIC a 'second-opinion' request. APNIC evaluates these requests as a way of ensuring consistent assignment practice throughout the region. Figure 13 shows the percentage of second opinion requests received per domain.

In 1998, Taiwan recorded the largest number of second-opinion requests, with 36% of the total. Most of these requests, in fact, came from a single organisation. Second opinion requests from the .net domain also constitute a high percentage of the total.

These data clearly indicate that .net and .com are the most popular choices of domain names across the APNIC membership and that Australia submits the highest number of AS requests.

APNIC's 'no questions asked' policy represents a trade-off of a gain in aggregation for a potential loss in conservation. The policy applies to space previously received on a 'provider independent' basis and allows organisations holding address space from three or more discontiguous prefixes to exchange addresses on a one-to-one basis from a single contiguous prefix. (It should be noted, however, that APNIC does not guarantee under any circumstances that such prefixes will be routable.)

In 1998, only two requests were made pursuant to the 'no questions asked' policy and only one of those requests was approved. The evidence suggests that despite the existence of the policy, organisations prefer to retain all their previously assigned address space. In light of this, a review of the role of the policy may be appropriate.

APNIC aims to maintain a consistent turnaround time on all requests. This ensures that members are able to predict response times with a high degree of confidence and plan the submission of their requests accordingly. Currently, the response time for requests is two working days.

In late 1998, following the employment of a technical writer, work commenced on a review of Member Services documentation. The first major component of this review was the development of a document describing APNIC's policies for address space management. This document will be presented to the APNIC Members' Meeting in March 1999 for further consideration.

Other ongoing projects commenced as part of this review include development of support material for those making requests to Member Services, integration of legal and other documentation with the policy documents, improved integration of web- and text-based request forms, and development of improved document revision and archiving processes.

Related to these activities, in 1999 APNIC will commence work on a project to translate the core APNIC documents into the most widely spoken languages of the region. APNIC plans to work closely with the membership to ensure the quality and accuracy of the translated documents. During 1999, the technical writer will seek the assistance of willing APNIC members to cooperate in this project.

In the Annual Report for 1997, APNIC identified a need for a greater level of training of registry staff within the Asia Pacific region. Due to the demand on staff resources by the relocation of APNIC, significant progress on this issue was not possible for much of 1998. However, by the end of that year, Member Services had coordinated with Technical Services to commence development of an intensive training course covering APNIC policies and procedures for the management of address space. The course will be delivered for the first time during the APRICOT '99 conference in March 1999.

During 1999, APNIC will recruit a full-time trainer and commit significant resources to the training needs of the region. The frequency of courses will be determined by demand from the membership and training courses will be subject to a nominal fee. APNIC will also make training material available on the APNIC web site.

Initially, APNIC will focus on delivering a single course, but expects that demand will emerge for different levels of training. APNIC expects that advanced courses will incorporate aspects of RPSL and routing policy.

Following a request from the IANA in 1998, the Regional Internet Registries (APNIC, ARIN, and RIPE NCC) agreed to commence IPv6 allocations in the first quarter of 1999.

In mid-1998, senior registry representatives attended a Regional Registry retreat, with Steve Deering, co-chair of the IPng working group, attending in a consultative role. The result of the retreat was an initial draft for the allocation and assignment of IPv6 addresses. Subsequent email discussions refined the draft, which was then published for membership feedback during February of 1999.

At the time of writing, the draft IPv6 policy document has been the subject of substantial public comment and the Registries may defer the launch of the IPv6 service in order to resolve any outstanding policy issues.

Demand for IPv6 address allocations has, to date, been limited. APNIC has received one application for a sub-TLA allocation and a total of 4 general enquiries.

In January 1998, APNIC had one Senior Hostmaster, and one Junior Hostmaster. In June 1998, Fabrina Hossain, a Junior Hostmaster was

appointed, bringing the total Member Services staff to three. However, Yoshiko Okazaki Chong Fong left APNIC in July on maternity leave and in December joined JPNIC.

In December 1998, APNIC employed Gerard Ross as Technical Writer, to meet the need for a greater and more consistent level of documentation within Member Services.

APNIC plans to increase the Member Services staffing level to a total of seven during 1999. New staff will include one full-time trainer and three new hostmasters, one of whom is expected to be at senior level.

The planned increases in staffing will allow APNIC to introduce a greater degree of specialisation within Member Services. One of the hostmasters will be assigned specifically to deal with the existing Confederations, (particularly those operating at a national level) with a key responsibility to provide support to those structures. An additional hostmaster will be responsible for providing specialised support to new members.

Additionally, APNIC intends that hostmasters, as they gain experience, will be involved in the presentation of training courses with the full-time trainer.

Liaison with other Regional Internet Registries, as well as with NIRs continues to be regarded as an important activity of the Member Services department and this importance is reflected in the staffing plan.

During the relocation of hostmaster activity from Tokyo to Brisbane, staffing emerged as a critical issue. To assist, RIPE NCC approved the secondment of Nick Reid to APNIC for a period of 6 weeks from 10 August until 18 September 1998. In March 1999, to ensure continued operations of APNIC hostmaster services during the lead up to the APNIC Members' Meeting and during APRICOT, RIPE NCC approved a further secondment, that of Sabrina Waschke.

Staff exchanges have proved to be an invaluable opportunity to share experience regarding policies and procedures. APNIC hopes that future opportunities will arise for it to arrange mutual staff exchanges with both ARIN and RIPE NCC.

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