ARIN, and reservations?

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1

An interesting note; has anyone else been assigned non-contiguous space
when the contiguous block had been 'reserved' for you?

For instance, we were assigned 64.21/17 about a year ago, with 64.21/16
reserved (we were told). It was then extended to a /17 + /18.

We went to get more, and now we've got some other /19 (they haven't
actually assigned it).

The point is, if 64.21/16 had been reserved, as they had said was done,
today we'd only be making one announcement; 64.21/16; instead, we have to
announce a /17, /18, and a new /19, or three times the announcements.

On a grand scale, or even a moderate scale, three times the announcements
is a significant amount.

Any comments?

PS: as an aside, as anyone else noticed ARIN continually, over the last
year or so, making the allocations smaller and smaller? Our first
allocation ever was a /17; now we get them in chunks of /19's. Does ARIN
have any interest or care in the size of the global routing tree?

2

An interesting note; has anyone else been assigned non-contiguous space
when the contiguous block had been 'reserved' for you?

For instance, we were assigned 64.21/17 about a year ago, with 64.21/16
reserved (we were told). It was then extended to a /17 + /18.

We went to get more, and now we've got some other /19 (they haven't
actually assigned it).

The point is, if 64.21/16 had been reserved, as they had said was done,
today we'd only be making one announcement; 64.21/16; instead, we have to
announce a /17, /18, and a new /19, or three times the announcements.

they did the same thing to us ... shrinking announcements.
209.58.128.0/17 "reserved". We went back after taking care of
209.58.128.0/18, and they gave us .192.0/19 and handed .224.0/19 out to
others. The "slow-start" seems to be abandoned ... I've gone from a /20
to /19 to /18 to /17 to /18 to /19 ...

On a grand scale, or even a moderate scale, three times the announcements
is a significant amount.

Any comments?

PS: as an aside, as anyone else noticed ARIN continually, over the last
year or so, making the allocations smaller and smaller? Our first
allocation ever was a /17; now we get them in chunks of /19's. Does ARIN
have any interest or care in the size of the global routing tree?

-travis

3

An interesting note; has anyone else been assigned non-contiguous space
when the contiguous block had been 'reserved' for you?

Yep. Same issue here.

For instance, we were assigned 64.21/17 about a year ago, with 64.21/16
reserved (we were told). It was then extended to a /17 + /18.

We went to get more, and now we've got some other /19 (they haven't
actually assigned it).

The point is, if 64.21/16 had been reserved, as they had said was done,
today we'd only be making one announcement; 64.21/16; instead, we have to
announce a /17, /18, and a new /19, or three times the announcements.

On a grand scale, or even a moderate scale, three times the announcements
is a significant amount.

Any comments?

In our case, our original registration (/19) was well over a year ago for
our /20, and ARIN's documentation does state that the space is not
held longer than that. We were literally in the process of asking for
more space when the other side of the /19 was assigned to Napster.

Luckily, Steve Rubin, (thanks again Steve, I still owe you dinner
and drinks!) was very kind and after several gyrations on our part
with ARIN, we were able to swap /20's to end up with a contiguous /19.

In the spirit of full disclosure, we were being boneheads and using
addresses in the reserved space under the mistaken assumption that
since we were being allowed to advertise the whole /19, and had intent
to use it, and were going to ask for the other side, it was OK to use
that space. Not so.

It would have been nice if ARIN had dropped an automated note to the
effect of, "Hey, you've got x months to apply for this space before we
re-assign it."

Regards,

Chris Kilbourn
Chief Technical Officer

4

Hello Alex,

For instance, we were assigned 64.21/17 about a year ago,
with 64.21/16 reserved (we were told).

ARIN does not guarantee reservations. We do our best to make
contiguous allocations, and often do, but sometimes it is not
possible.

ARIN receives one or two /8s at a time from the IANA and
keeps aggregation in mind when making allocations. However,
we also have to demonstrate 80 percent of that IP address
space has been allocated when requesting additional IP
address space from the IANA.

PS: as an aside, as anyone else noticed ARIN continually,
over the last year or so, making the allocations smaller
and smaller? Our first allocation ever was a /17; now we
get them in chunks of /19's.

It is ARIN's current policy to issue IP address space to
organizations based to their three month need. ARIN staff
review requests and make allocations in accordance with
this policy.

Richard Jimmerson
Director of Operations
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)

5

Who 'allowed' you to announce the /19 when you had a /20 of it?

ARIN, at least to us, has been clear on not announcing what isn't
assigned.

6

ARIN.

ARIN's former policy (in effect in 10/98 when we applied,) was that
when requesting a /19 as an initial allocation, you would be
assigned a /20, but the whole /19 would be reserved for future
use, providing you could demonstrate need within either 12 or 18
months (I don't recall exactly).

As part of that previous policy, you were allowed to announce the entire
reserved /19, which we did.

In the intervening years, ARIN has changed its policies so that initial
allocations are a /20.

Regards,

Chris Kilbourn
Chief Technical Officer

7

Who 'allowed' you to announce the /19 when you had a /20 of it?

ARIN, at least to us, has been clear on not announcing what isn't
assigned.

It is likely this was an allocation made under ARIN's multi-homed
policy in 1998. In 1998, ARIN's minimum allocation size was a /19.
Organizations approved under the multi-homed policy, at that time,
were allocated a /20 and allowed to announce the /19.

In 1999, ARIN's minimum allocation size was reduced to a /20.
Organizations receiving allocations made under the multi-homed
policy following this change are only allowed to announce the
/20.

Richard Jimmerson
Director of Operations
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)