ARIN 49 Day 2 Daily Recap

By Jennifer Bly – External Relations Manager

Welcome back for your Day 2 recap of the ARIN 49 Public Policy and Members Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, and online via Zoom. Today’s highlights included policy discussions, presentations by ARIN staff and volunteers, an all-star panel about IPv6, and updates from each of the other Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).

Thanks to everyone who joined us so far, and we’ll see you again tomorrow at 9 AM CDT for the final day of the meeting. If you wish to participate in the meeting proceedings, it’s not too late to register.

Day 2 Morning

Kicking off the day, Director of Communications Hollis Kara welcomed all attendees and introduced the day’s agenda. She then handed the microphone off to Brad Gorman, Senior Product Owner, Routing Security, who jumped into a presentation on routing security. He walked through the steps we took to prepare for the ARIN-NONAUTH Internet Routing Registry (IRR) shutdown and the final state of the database at retirement. He also explained the new release of ARIN’s Public Service for Delegated Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) and took a look at some RPKI usage statistics. A growing number of organizations are taking advantage of the RPKI services offered by ARIN, as shown by the more than 45 thousand Route Origin Authorizations (ROAs) created to date. Brad then explained planned product development and expanded training opportunities.

Photo by Ashley Perks

Next up, Amy Potter from the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) gave an update on the Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Group. She explained what they’ve been working on, including a rewrite of the PDP document that is more readable, easier to use, accessible to all types of users, and concise in each step’s requirements. When ready, the recommended text will be published to the Public Policy Mail List (PPML) for community feedback.

Then ARIN AC member, Matthew Wilder, shared about the Number Resource Policy Manual (NRPM) Working Group (WG). He reviewed the WG charter, composition, scope of responsibilities, highlights of completed work, and work underway. The NRPM WG has the goal of clarifying and simplifying Internet number resource policy and recommending relevant updates in the form of Policy Proposals submitted through the ARIN PDP.

Rob Seastrom of the ARIN AC followed with an exploration of NRPM history with Git, because the historical context of why a given policy item exists can inform current discussion when the community is considering modification or deletion of policy language. Since 2018, the NRPM has been available in Markdown format as a Git repository, so Rob explained how to make the best use of this resource with an interesting Git / NRPM tutorial.

Next, Joe Westover, Office of the CCO, Senior Manager, explained recent changes to the ARIN fee structure and membership. He covered what changed, the timeline, and the customer impact. The objectives of the fee structure change included applying an equitable fee schedule across our community, providing a uniform treatment of all ARIN customers, and more. Simplification of the fee schedule was a benefit to our customers while also allowing ARIN to effectively scale our internal operations to meet future demands. Joe then explained the 2022 Membership Categories, which include a new category for Service Members that comprises organizations holding IPv4 or IPv6 Internet number resources under a Registration Services Agreement (RSA/LRSA) and has access to all ARIN services. General Members are Service Members who have committed to participate and vote in ARIN elections, and Joe explained what it takes for a Service Member to gain and maintain General Membership.

Then John Sweeting, Chief Customer Officer, reported on the Registration Services Department (RSD). He covered RSD staff, the retirement of long-term employee, Cathy Clements, and department statistics. Nearly 19 thousand ARIN Online tickets were processed in 2021, and the number of organizations served by ARIN totals 39,282.

Policy Block

After a short break, we popped into our Policy Session for the day during which community members discussed the following draft policies:

• Draft Policy ARIN-2021-7: Make Abuse Contact Useful – presented by Amy Potter, ARIN AC
• Draft Policy ARIN-2021-8: Deprecation of the ‘Autonomous System Originations’ Field – presented by Alicia Trotman, ARIN AC
• Draft Policy ARIN-2022-1: MDN Clarification for Qualification – presented by Chris Woodfield, ARIN AC

Then just before lunch we squeezed in two more sessions originally slated for tomorrow afternoon. First, Chief Financial Officer, Brian Kirk, updated the community about the Financial Services Department (FSD) with a look at billing and accounts receivable, customer service activity, accounts payable and disbursements, and accounting and financial statements. He left us with the final thought that a major objective for FSD is to be “brilliant at the basics,” including transaction processing, financial statements and reporting, cash management, and internal controls.

Next, Erin Alligood, Senior Director of Human Resources and Administration, introduced ARIN’s HR and Administration team, its responsibilities, and what the pandemic work environment has been like for ARIN staff. She highlighted ARIN’s value statements, an average employee tenure of more than eight years, and upcoming 2022 projects.

Lunch Break and Table Topics

At mid-day, we paused for a lunch break. Much like virtual participants enjoyed table topic breakout rooms on Zoom yesterday, in-person attendees today had a chance to gather and discuss the following topic areas:

• Routing Security with Brad Gorman, Senior Product Owner, Routing Security
• CCO Feedback with Joe Westover, Senior Manager, Office of the CCO
• IP Address Leasing with Alison Wood, Advisory Council
• Internet Governance and International Political Conflict with Alyssa Quinn, Advisory Council
• Simplifying the Number Resource Policy Manual with Chris Tacit, Advisory Council
• Improving Policy Discussion and Participation with Anita Nikolich, Advisory Council

Day 2 Afternoon

After refueling, it was time for the much awaited panel on “Why Doesn’t the Internet Migrate Entirely to IPv6?” It featured six industry expert panelists:

• Vinton G. Cerf - Google
• Byron Holland - CIRA
• Lee Howard - IPv4.Global by Hilco Streambank
• Geoff Huston - APNIC
• Jared Mauch - Akamai Technologies
• Brent Mc Intosh - MCNET-SOLUTIONS

As moderator, John Curran, President and CEO, asked questions of the panel including:

1. What does “the Internet Completely Migrating to IPv6?” mean to you, and do you think it will ever happen?
2. What are the hurdles in the way of complete migration to IPv6, and how can we solve them?
3. Does it really matter if the Internet makes it completely to IPv6 and should that even be a goal?
4. As a Regional Internet Registry, what should ARIN do about IPv6 migration?

John also took questions from the floor and remote queues that led to varying additional responses and interesting discussion. Panelists offered their thoughts on why we are where we are with IPv6 adoption, the main challenges they have observed, predictions for the future, areas to focus on, and reasoning behind trends seen in usage of IPv4 and IPv6. Collectively, panelists agreed that there is a need for the Internet to move to IPv6. On other issues, however, they had differing views. Each provided thought-provoking commentary for us to consider when it comes to IPv6 deployment.

Then we rounded out the afternoon with updates from each of the four other RIRs presented by our colleagues: James Chirwa, Head of Member Services, AFRINIC; Paul Wilson, Director General, APNIC; Oscar Robles-Garay, CEO, LACNIC; and Marco Schmidt, Registry Services Assistant Manager, RIPE NCC. It was great to hear what our fellow RIRs are up to in their respective regions.

The last session of the day - Open Microphone - was hosted by Board Chair Bill Sandiford and John Curran. Questions at open mic touched on legacy resource holders. Concluding the day, Hollis Kara closed with final announcements and adjournment.

Friends in [All] Places

Yesterday in-person attendees had the opportunity to enjoy some live music and socialize with each other at the Country Music Hall of Fame. As a reminder, virtual attendees have a Happy Hour to look forward to at the conclusion of today’s meeting.

Photo by David Jeffers CC BY-NC-SA

To reference anything that has been presented during the meeting so far, all slides from today have been posted online on our ARIN 49 Meeting Materials page. We will be adding transcripts and webcasts there soon as well. We encourage you to continue tweeting with the #ARIN49 hashtag, and we look forward to the third and final day of the meeting tomorrow.

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