____________________________________________________ RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Daniel Karrenberg Mirjam Kuehne Carol Orange Paul Ridley RIPE NCC Version 2.0 Document: ripe-144 Updates: ripe-133 See also: ripe-145 1. Scope & Process This memorandum describes the activities to be per- formed by the RIPE NCC and associated expenditure during the year 1997. The companion document "RIPE NCC Revenue & Charging 1997" (ripe-chr) describes the way to generate the necessary revenue. There are several 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 approved, possibly after modification, by the NCC Contributors Commit- tee representing the organisations providing the funding. TERENA finally endorses the document, acknowledging formal responsibility for the execu- tion of the activities. At that point the document is frozen and represents both charter and budget for NCC activities during 1997. Current Status The contributors committee has approved this docu- ment on September 11 1996. TERENA has subsequently endorsed it. This version is final. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 1 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ Changes The document itself will not be changed once the process described above is completed. However the last two 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. We therefore expect that the plan will be amended at least once during 1997. The RIPE NCC will propose amendments which will be approved following an accelerated version of the process described above involving the contribu- tors committee and TERENA. The NCC quarterly reports will provide background and motivation for any such amendments. 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. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 2 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ It is because of this distinction that this document is structured around activities, rather than ser- vices. 3. Activity Areas Since 1996 all NCC activities have been grouped into four main categories. A general description of the categories follows to precede the budget figures. Detailed descriptions of all activities can be found later in this document. Registration Activities This represents activities related to the NCC's role as Regional Internet Registry (IR) for Europe and the surrounding areas. It includes handling of requests for assignment or allocation of IP address space, management of reverse domains associated with this address space as well as auditing and quality control to ensure fair and expedient processing of requests. Also included in this area are training of Local Internet Registries, production of documen- tation 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 such as efforts to reduce the number of globally visible routing prefixes also fall into this category, as does the production and publication of software tools for such efforts. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 3 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ 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. Administration Activities This area covers all regular reports published by the NCC, administrative support for RIPE as well as general administrative overheads which cannot be clearly attributed to a specific activity. As such it includes production of the Quarterly Reports and the resources needed for charging, billing and the general financial administration. New Activities This area represents those activities that are either entirely unforeseen or cannot be fully speci- fied 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 new activites are executed under the guidance of the RIPE working groups. It is assumed that rep- resentatives of the contributors participate actively in these working groups. The PRIDE project and the creation of the routing registry in general are good examples of such activ- ities as is the startup of IPv6 coordination. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 4 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ 4. Budget and Growth Plan The number of local Internet registries is still increasing rapidly. The projections for 1997 are as follows: +------------+--------------+-----------------------------------------+ | | Observed | Projected | |Registries | Q1 Q2 | Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 | | | 1996 01996 | 1996 1996 1997 1997 1997 1997 | +------------+--------------+-----------------------------------------+ | Large ISP | 32 34 | 37 41 44 48 51 54 | | Medium ISP | 49 53 | 60 65 71 76 82 88 | | Small ISP | 246 308 | 376 451 529 610 692 776 | | Enterprise | 19 26 | 31 37 42 48 54 60 | |Last Resort | 22 13 | 6 0 0 0 0 0 | +------------+--------------+-----------------------------------------+ | TOTAL | 368 434 | 510 594 686 781 878 977 | +------------+--------------+-----------------------------------------+ For easy comparison the projection uses the current categories for registries. Based on this projection and the required activities as described below the sum of the staff resources needed during 1997 is as follows: +---------------+------+ |Activity Area | FTE | +---------------+------+ | Registration | 14.0 | | Coordination | 6.1 | |Administration | 4.7 | | New | 2.5 | +---------------+------+ | Total | 27.3 | +---------------+------+ ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 5 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ From this the following budget results according to the budgeting principles described in appendix X: +---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+ |Activity Area | 1996 % | 1997 % | delta | +---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+ | Registration | 556 61 | 1064 54 | 508 | | Coordination | 162 18 | 442 22 | 280 | |Administration | 138 15 | 311 16 | 173 | | New | 60 7 | 166 8 | 106 | +---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+ | TOTAL (kECU) | 916 | 1984 | 1068 | +---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+ The figures of the 1996 budget (ripe-133) are shown for comparison. This budget represents expenditure under the assumption that the charging model similar to the current one will be in use and thus there will be no additional resources needed to administer charging. The additional resources needed to exe- cute different models are on the order of one per- cent of the total. See the Revenue&Charging docu- ment for details. Of course the growth has been planned carefully. The plans are ambitious but realistic. For illus- tration purposes the staffing plan broken down by department is shown below. +---------------+---------------------------+ | | FTEs | | Department | Q2 Q4 Q2 Q4 | | | 1996 1996 1997 1997 | +---------------+------+--------------------+ | Management | 3 | 4 4 4 | | Registration | 6 | 7 9 12 | | Engineering | 2 | 6 9 11 | |Administration | 2 | 3 5 5 | +---------------+------+--------------------+ | Total | 13 | 20 27 32 | +---------------+------+--------------------+ Note that there is no direct relationship between the breakdown by activity area and that by depart- ment because staff from several departments may work on a particular activity. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 6 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ General Discussion Comparing the growth in registries and in personnel shows that the two are growing roughly at the same rate: +---------------+---------------------------+ | | Q2 Q4 Q2 Q4 | | | 1996 1996 1997 1997 | +---------------+------+--------------------+ | Registries | 434 | 594 781 977 | | FTEs | 13 | 20 27 32 | +---------------+------+--------------------+ |registries/FTE | 33 | 30 29 31 | +---------------+------+--------------------+ Theoretically one would expect the NCC to grow more slowly than the number of local registries because of economies of scale. In reality however there are several factors compensating this trend. Firstly the NCC is in a critical growth stage where low cost informal processes controlled and executed by individuals have to be replaced by more formal processes involving several people. For example financial planning and control have to be formalised further because both the funds and the number of people involved increase significantly. Secondly the stability and reliability of the NCC becomes increasingly critical to the European Inter- net industry. Meeting this need causes additional overheads that we have been able to avoid in the past. Last but not least existing services need to be extended in various ways and additional services are required. Registration Activities The growth in the expenditure for registration activities is slightly higher than the expected total growth in registries from 594 to 977. We do expect to make further efficiency improvements to lower the costs for the present registration activities. However the room for that is limited as many of those activities require professional and technical judgement of hostmasters which cannot be ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 7 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ automated. The increased expenditure is caused by the introduc- tion of necessary new activities and the stepping up of training activities. Distinct activities for quality control (R1.8) as well as consistency&audits (R1.9) are needed to maintain a fair and credible registry system. This also prepares well for later quality control certification, should it become desirable. In order to defend the registry system as a process of industry self regulation towards the community at large, we need to continuously make sure that it works well and we must be able to demonstrate that it does. Good training and quality control is essential. Coordination Activities The expenditure for coordination activities increases again as the usage of them increases and they become more critical to a growing number of users. The recovery from the significant lack of resources in 1995 continues and is represented by a further increase of the relative size of this budget line to 22% of the total. Administration Activities Resources in this area will increase significantly as required by growth while relative size of expen- diture is kept constant. New activities Activities in this area will be stepped up while the relative size of expenditure the area for remains constant. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 8 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ 5. Challenges The main challenge for the NCC -as for the Internet- is to manage its growth. We have planned the growth of the NCC as carefully and realistically as possi- ble while maintaining enough flexibility 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 peo- ple who make it happen. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 9 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ 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. Finally appendix X lists details of the budgeting procedures. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 10 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ 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. R.1 Regional Internet Registry Goal: The RIPE NCC provides Internet registration services 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 Internet numbers, especially address space in Europe and the surrounding areas. The specific goals for address space are uniqueness of addresses, conservation of the remaining IPv4 address space, aggregation of routing information and registration of network man- agement information. Description: Because the Regional Internet registry consumes the majority of RIPE NCC resources, its activi- ties are described and accounted for in detailed activities below. To be able to perform registration activities exist- ing tools are used and new tools will be developed. The development of these tools is not listed as part of only a few activities, because the use of these tools is essential to reach the overall goal of these activities and to provide reliable registra- tion services to Local IR's. Common to of all these activities is further the feedback given to the RIPE Local IR WG about general application of procedures and policies. Finally the general management of the Regional IR is accounted for in R1. RIPE WG Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 11 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ R1.1 First Address Space Assignment Description: The RIPE NCC will give special attention to every Local IR's initial request for address space. It will help to make the first assign- ment and allocate an aggregateable range of addresses for further assignments. Goal: This will help Local IR's to process their first request and to have a better understand- ing of the procedures for further requests. It will also help to build a good working rela- tionship between the RIPE NCC and the Local IR's. Furthermore it will enable neutral and impartial treatment of all Local IR's. RIPE WG Advising: RIPE Local IR WG R1.2 Assignment Approval Description: Some IP address requests require approval from the RIPE NCC, specially when they are above a certain 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 furthermore give recommendation and guidelines for future requests. Goal: This activity will ensure uniform application of policies and assignment criteria by all Local IR's and will help to make a Local IR familiar with request evaluation. It will sup- port Local IR's in their operations and help them to process increasing request sizes. It will also enable fair operations of all Local IR's. RIPE WG Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 12 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ R1.3 PI Assignment Description: The RIPE NCC will process all requests for PI (provider independent) address space submitted by Local IR's. 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 WG Advising: RIPE Local IR WG RIPE Routing WG R1.4 Address Allocation Description: The RIPE NCC will allocate address space to Local IR's for further assignment to end users. This activity will also contain auditing of assignments made from previous allocations. Goal: This activity will help to ensure fair distri- bution 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. RIPE WG Advising: RIPE Local IR WG , RIPE Routing WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 13 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ R1.5 AS Number Assignment Description: The RIPE NCC will assign AS numbers according to IANA policies and will register these num- bers and the associated routing policies. Goal: This activity will ensure uniqueness of AS num- bers and help in collecting data for the Rout- ing Registry. Related Activities: Routing Registry Maintenance WG advising: RIPE Local IR WG RIPE Routing WG R1.6 Reverse DNS Delegation Description: The RIPE NCC will delegate reverse DNS zones for the address ranges allocated or assigned by 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 it's responsibility for proper set-up and function- ing. Goal: This activity will be necessary to ensure proper address-to-name mapping for addresses allocated to the RIPE NCC. RIPE WG Advising: RIPE DNS WG RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 14 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ R1.7 Registry Consistency & Auditing Description: The RIPE NCC will significantly increase its efforts to actively check the quality 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 distribu- tion, the RIPE NCC will regularly check that assign- ment guidelines are applied equally. This activity will be 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. Senior hostmasters will be relieved of their daily duties and assigned to this activity for significant periods of time. Of course consistency checking and auditing will still be performed within other activities as well. This particular activity is to provide the parts that have to be done independently 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 WG Advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 15 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ R1.8 Registration Activities Quality Control Description: Because of the enormous growth it becomes increasingly important to systematically moni- tor the quality of registration activities within the NCC. The NCC will develop quality measures for registra- tion activities and monitor them. Part of this activity will be to give careful attention to cus- tomer questions and suggestions. This will also include proposals for possible automation and other improvements of internal procedures and work flow management. Eventually this activity may lead to seeking a formal quality management certification. Of course quality control will still be performed within other registration activities as well. This particular activity is to provide the parts that have to be done independently of processing individ- ual requests. This will also be managed and executed separately from day-to-day request processing. Senior hostmas- ters will be relieved of their daily duties and assigned to this activity for significant periods of time. The reporting chain and responsibility for this activity will be separate from the other regis- tration activities. Goal: This activity will help to maintain a high quality of services provided. Related Activities: All registration activities. Administration activities. RIPE WG Advising: RIPE Local IR WG Budgeting: 10% of the costs for this activity are assigned to Administrative services because their qual- ity will also be directly and indirectly moni- tored and approved. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 16 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ R2 Initial Support for Local IR's The initial support for newly established registries is independent from other registration activities. They are not initiated by a request sent to the RIPE NCC but are 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 Description: The RIPE NCC will provide initial support to Local IR's during their start up phase. Goal: This activity will support new Local IR's dur- ing their start up phase, so that they feel comfortable with tools, procedures and guide- lines. Related Activities: Billing ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 17 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ R2.2 Training Courses Description: The RIPE NCC will develop and deliver Training Courses for Local IR's. The course material will include IP address assignment and alloca- tion procedures and policies, delegation of reverse domains and how to you use the database. Goal: The goal of this activity is to make new Local IR's familiar with procedures and policies as well as to keep established Local IR's up to date with new guidelines and developments. This will facilitate smooth operations between the RIPE NCC and the Local IR's. By establish- ing the same assignment policies we will also enable a fair distribution of address space among the community. WG advising: RIPE Local IR WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 18 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ R 3 Liaison and Coordination Description: The RIPE NCC will perform its function as a Regional Internet Registry (IR) in close coop- eration and coordination with other Internet organisations like the IANA, other regional IRs and local IRs. This activity will include pro- cessing electronic mail related to registry coordination as well as attending relevant meetings mostly in conjunction with other Internet meetings. Goal: The goal of this activity is to ensure the European registry system conforms with the goals and policies of other regional areas of the Internet. It is also important to promote the interests of the Local IR's in its service region to the whole community and the Internet authorities. WG advising: RIPE Local IR WG Budgeting: This activity is very closely related to coor- dination services and it is often not possible to separate out the resource usage in detail. Thus all liaison activities are grouped here, but 50% of the costs are assigned to coordina- tion activities. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 19 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ 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 the European area. In order to be effective the services per- formed in this area have to be accessible to the general Internet public. However contributors to the funding of the NCC will receive precedence when special support is needed. C.0 RIPE Database Software Description: The RIPE NCC will continue to maintain and expand the RIPE database software suite. The RIPE database software is used to provide a repository for registration services data as well as the RIPE routing registry and to make this data available on the Internet. The soft- ware is also used by some local IRs, by the AP- NIC as well as all routing registries world- wide. The NCC will maintain the RIPE database software suite and further develop it to meet future requirements. Goal: This activity will result in a highly func- tional RIPE database software suite in a dis- tributable version. By making this publicly available, compatibility between various reg- istries is promoted. Related Activities: Registration services activities (R.1-R.3) heavily depend on this software as does the routing registry (C.5). Other related activi- ties include: C.1, C.2, C.3 and C.7. WG advising: RIPE Database WG , RIPE Local IR WG , RIPE Routing WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 20 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ C.1 RIPE Database Availability Description: The RIPE NCC will provide access to the RIPE database via whois and wais servers. Addition- ally, efforts to support secondary database servers at other sites will be facilitated. In particular, assistance will be provided to local registries in setting up secondary database servers. Software which allows near real time mirroring of the RIPE database will be maintained and enhanced as required. Goal: This activity will ensure efficient and reli- able access to the information maintained in the RIPE database. Related Activities: C.0 Database Maintenance and C.2 Database Exchange WG Advising: RIPE Database WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 21 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ C.2 Routing Registry Data Exchange Description: To ensure efficient access to global routing policy data, the RIPE NCC will coordinate and execute the exchange of data with other routing registries. Goal: This activity will enable ISPs to optimize their routing policies at a global level in an efficient fashion. Related Activities: C.1 RIPE Database Availability, C.3 Registry Data Exchange, C.5 RR Maintenance, and C.6 RR Tools. WG Advising: RIPE Database WG RIPE Routing WG C.3 Registry Data Exchange Description: The RIPE NCC will coordinate registry data exchange with other regional registries. The extent to which this will be possible depends on the cooperation of other regional reg- istries. Goal: To provide the end user with *authoritative* data on address space and other assigned num- bers regardless of the regional registry a query is submitted to. Related Activities: C.1 RIPE Database Availability, C.7 Database management tools WG Advising: RIPE Database WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 22 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ C.4 DNS Quality Monitoring Description: The DNS name servers in the RIPE NCC service region determine the quality of the data avail- able to the ISPs in the region. The RIPE NCC will track the consistency and availability of DNS name servers in its service region, as well as their immediate connections beyond. The NCC will report errors and will, if necessary, take corrective action. be taken. The NCC will develop tools to detect errors as required. The NCC will publish the monthly European top level domain host count. Goal: This activity supports the maintenance of glob- ally consistent DNS servers. In particular it is aimed to ensure the integrity of the reverse delegation data corresponding to the address space allocated by the RIPE NCC. Related Activities: R1.6 Reverse DNS Delegation, C.7 Database man- agement tools WG Advising: RIPE DNS WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 23 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ C.5 RR Maintenance Description: The routing policies registered in the RR can be exploited to determine optimal policies for a particular ISP. To ensure the results are reliable, the RIPE NCC will track consistency of routing registry data. Checks will also be performed for redundant routing announcements. ISPs will be informed of gaps and possible errors. Moreover, the NCC will develop train- ing material for the use of the RR as needed. Goal: This activity supports the maintenance of a globally consistent RR. It also helps elimi- nate redundant route announcements, which in turn helps control the growth of routing tables. Related Activities: C.6 RR Tools, C.7 Database Quality Tools, R2.2 Training Courses WG Advising: RIPE Routing WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 24 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ C.6 RR Tools Description: The Routing Registry tools that were developed in the PRIDE project allow the data stored in the RR to be employed in making routing policy decisions. The RIPE NCC will maintain and extend the RR tools developed in the PRIDE pro- ject, help deploy and support RR tools devel- oped by others as necessary and help to develop new tools as required. Goal: This activity will enable the data stored in the RR to be used to improve Internet routing at a global level. Related Activities: C.2 Routing Registry Data Exchange, C.5 RR Maintenance. WG Advising: RIPE Routing WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 25 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ C.7 Database Quality Tools Description: The RIPE NCC maintains a number of databases in which address allocations and assignments are stored or referenced. To ensure the data regis- tered is reliable, tools will be developed to monitor consistency of the RIPE database, the RR, the DNS, and the internal databases of the RIPE NCC. Data maintainers will be notified if an inconsistency is detected. Goal: This activity will guarantee the authority of the information maintained at the RIPE NCC, and facilitate data consistency among the dis- tributed public databases. Related Activities: C.4 DNS Quality Monitoring, C.5 RR Maintenance, R1 Regional Internet Registry 4,3 WG Advising: RIPE Database WG RIPE Local IR WG C.10 RIPE Document Store Description: The RIPE NCC will maintain and enable access to documents relevant to ISPs in the RIPE NCC ser- vice area. This includes documents produced by RIPE, the RIPE NCC, and related Internet docu- ments which may be of use. The documentation will be made available via FTP and WWW. Goal: This activity enables access to key Internet information and documentation, including that produced at the RIPE NCC. Related Activities: all NCC activities ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 26 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ A. Administration Activities This area covers the regular reports published by the NCC, administrative support for RIPE, as well as general administrative overheads which cannot be clearly attributed to a specific activity. A1. Administration & Reporting Description: The NCC will maintain a proper financial plan- ning, financial accounting, and general admin- istration. It will publish quarterly activity reports, yearly activity and financial reports. The RIPE NCC will also provide administrative support to RIPE, in particular for the organi- sation of RIPE meetings. Currently many tasks in this area such as accounting and personnel management are preformed by the TERENA secretariat. During 1997 this support is expected to continue but not increase in absolute terms. This means an increasing proportion of the adminis- trative work will be done by dedicated NCC person- nel. Goal: To create and maintain a smooth running admin- istrative core that provides a management information system, guarantees financial hus- bandry, looks after personnel needs. To pro- vide information to the contributors and other interested parties. Related Activities: This activity is related to and supports all other categories of RIPE NCC. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 27 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ 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 their nature new activities are hard to specify in detail and priori- ties 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 therefore more of a subjective statement of direc- tion rather than a fixed plan of action. In partic- ular some of the ideas below have not yet been fully discussed in the RIPE working groups concerned. N.1 IPv6 Coordination Description: The NCC will gather and publish information about implementations of IP version 6. It will provide coordination support for IPv6 pilot networks including the registration of IPv6 objects in the RIPE database. It will also provide routing and test-target support by operating one or more IPv6 routers and end-sys- tems. This activity is already started and will continue. Goal: This activity will provide a source of informa- tion about the state of IPv6 and help ISPs to get experience with it. RIPE WG Advising: IP Version 6 WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 28 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ N.2 Routing Information Service Description: Exterior routing is a critical component of the Internet. There is a growing need for network operations staff to have access to the state of routing at strategic points in the European Internet both in near real time and for selected times in the past. This is very help- ful to quickly diagnose connectivity problems. Long term time series of this information are also useful to determine trends in routing, help validate routing registry data, promote aggregation and much more. The RIPE NCC will neutrally and professionally col- lect real time routing data from those willing to provide it. The NCC will make this data publicly available in a suitable form, possibly similar to the current routing registry. Note that this activity is markedly different from operating 'route server' at exchange points. It does not provide individual real-time views of rout- ing information to be used for actually routing traffic. It provides general views at specific times for problem diagnosis and archives them. The RIPE NCC will also provide prototype tools for access to the data. It will not provide full fledged commercial quality tools or integrate this functionality into existing network management tools. This activity will be started during the year in consultation with the relevant working groups. It's schedule is dependent on the relative priority of other activities in this area. The resources cur- rently planned are sufficient for prototype imple- mentations and initial deployment support showing feasibility and usefulness of the service. Large scale deployment and maintenance may require addi- tional funding which will be sought separately. Goal: To provide access to routing state at strategic points both in near real time and for selected times in the past. To enable time series anal- ysis of this data. RIPE WG Advising: ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 29 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ Routing WG , EOF N.3 Test Traffic Measurements Description: The RIPE NCC will compile a 'traffic test sta- tion' software suite to inject, absorb and mea- sure test traffic packets. The RIPE NCC will promote deployment of the station by interested parties as well as collect the measurement data, verify, process and make it publicly available in various forms. Note that this data is different from the routing data (N.2) and needs to be collected at different points. There are many uses for such independently collected and verified data. A near real time stream of mea- surement 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 impartial collection and publishing of the data. Also essen- tial is good documentation about what is being mea- sured and what is not. This activity will be started during the year in consultation with the relevant working groups. It's schedule is dependent on the relative priority given to other activities in this area. The resources currently planned are sufficient for prototype implementations and initial deployment support show- ing feasibility and usefulness of the service. Large scale deployment and maintenance may require additional funding which will be sought separately. Goal: To help diagnose real time connectivity prob- lems. Collection of connectivity data by a neutral agency. To help establish measures for Internet quality. RIPE WG Advising: EOF , Routing WG ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 30 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ X - Budgeting Principles Since personnel resources dominate all others, bud- geting is based on the expected personnel resources needed by each activity. In determining the distribution of various overheads to particular budget lines, each overhead was dealt with separately and distributed in an appropriate manner. After this process of distribution total individual FTE costs were allocated to specific activities which were in turn split between the four budget lines. Listed below are all of the overhead categories together with a description of the respective distribution policies. Office Supplies These costs were distributed on an FTE basis. Rented Equipment These costs were distributed on an employee basis, regardless of their FTE status. Telecommunications Costs These costs were distributed on an FTE basis. Computer Equipment These costs were distributed based on an FTE basis. Travel Costs These costs were attributed to the specific activity to which they pertained. Rent This cost was distributed based on an employee basis, regardless of their FTE status. Recruitment These costs were distributed based on an FTE basis. Consultancy Fees These costs were distributed based on an FTE basis. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 31 RIPE NCC Activities & Expenditure 1997 Karrenberg, Kuehne, Orange, Ridley ____________________________________________________ External Accounting These costs were distributed based on an FTE basis. Unforeseen Expenses These were distributed based on an FTE basis. ____________________________________________________ ripe-144.txt Page 32