Comparison of RIR's IPv6 policy implementation for Essential Infrastructure

I.   Current Status of IPv6 policy
II.  Comparison of RIR's policy for Essential Infrastructure
III. Current Status of AP policy
IV.  Proposed AP policy
V.  Conclusion

I. Current Status of IPv6 policy

     2002 June  Joint IPv6 policy completed
     2002 July Joint IPv6 implemented by all RIRs
      - A consistent policy applies across the region
      - No major problem in practice and already made 2 allocations
        through JPNIC(Aug 2002)
    

II. Comparison of RIR's policy for Essential Infrastructure

                           RIPE       ARIN       APNIC
         ----------------+----------+----------+----------+
         Rt.DNS          | /32      | /48      |          |
         IX              | /48      | /48      | /64      |
         gTLD/ccTLD      |          | /48      |          |
         RIR/NIC/IANA    |          | /48      |          |

     Policy for essential infrastructure varies depending on the region

III. Current Status of AP policy
     
     It is the only region which assigns /64 to IX
     We have not fixed a policy on assignments to Rt.DNS, and networks
     for gTLD/ccTLD as well as those of RIR/NIC/IANA

     Does not make sense to have a different assignment size depeding
     on the region. We should also make the policy for essential
     infrastructure consistent.

IV. Proposed AP policy

     To make policy for Essential Infrastructure consistent across the
     Region, we propose to make the policy consiten with that of ARIN.

     i. /48 should be assigned to IX
       Pros
        - Can be assigned out of /32 reserved for IX assignments
        - all IXs will receive the same assignment size throughout the
          world
        - it is the minumum size to be registered into DB
       Cons
        - Assignments have already been made
        - /64 could meet the needs sufficiently

    ii./48 should be assigned to Rt.DNS
       Pros
        - Can be assigned out of /32 reserved for Rt.DNS
        - Can be made routable by posting the address block publicly
       Cons
        - The risk to be filtered is higher than /32

   iii./48 should be assigned to gTLD/ccTLD DNS
      Pros
       - Can be assigned out of /32 reserved for this purpose
       - Consistent with assignment to Rt.DNS
       - Consitent with ARIN's policy

    iv./48 should be assigned to RIR/NIC/IANA
      Pros
       - Difficult to receive an assignment from a particular ISP due
         to the independent nature of its organization
       - Consitent with ARIN's policy
      Cons
       - No major technical problem by receiving assignment from
         upstream

V. Conclusion
      To follow the spirit of the joint IPv6 policy, we should make a
      globally consistent policy for essential infrastructure.

      In order to achieve this, we propose the following assignment
      size

                        RIPE       ARIN       APNIC      JPNIC
         ----------------+----------+----------+----------+----------
         Rt.DNS          | /32      | /48      |  -       | /48
         IX              | /48      | /48(*)   | /64      | /48
         gTLD/ccTLD      |          | /48(*)   |  -       | /48
         RIR/NIC/IANA    |          | /48      |          | /48

  
  Izumi Okutani
  IP Address Section
  Japan Network Information Center
  Tel:+81-3-5297-2311
  Fax:+81-3-5297-2312