[policy-wg] Last Call for policy afpol-as200407-000

[Hisham R Rojoa]

Dear Colleagues,

We had consensus on the policy bellow during the AfriNIC-4 meeting.
This a final call before it get ratified by the board. If you have any 
additional comments it is now the time for it.

Regards.

 =========================
1. Author:  Geoff Huston
2. Organization: APNIC
3. Policy Affected: afpol-as200407-000 - ASN Allocation Policy

4. Date: 9 December 2005

 Proposal: 4-Byte AS Number Policy Proposal

 Author: Geoff Huston, gih at apnic.net, APNIC

 Proposal Version: 1.0

 Proposal Type: New

 Policy Term: Temporary (1 January 2007 ­ 1 January 2010)

 Policy Statement: This policy proposal nominates 3 dates for changes to the 
current AS Number allocation policy for the registry:

On 1 January 2007 the registry will process applications that
specifically request 4-byte only AS Numbers and allocate such
AS Numbers as requested by the applicant. In the absence of
any specific request for a 4-byte only AS Number, a 2-byte
only AS Number will be allocated by the registry.

On 1 January 2009 the registry will process applications that
specifically request 2-byte only AS Numbers and allocate such
AS Numbers as requested by the applicant. In the absence of
any specific request for a 2-byte only AS Number, a 4-byte
only AS Number will be allocated by the registry.

On 1 January 2010 the registry will cease to make any
distinction between 2-byte only AS Numbers and 4-byte only AS
Numbers, and will operate AS number allocations from an
undifferentiated 4-byte AS Number allocation pool.

 Nomenclature
It is proposed to identify 4-byte AS Numbers using a syntax of
<high order 16 bit value in decimal>:<low order 16 bit value
in decimal>. Accordingly, a 4-byte AS number of value 65546
(decimal) would be identified as "1:10".

Terminology
"2-byte only AS Numbers" refers to AS numbers in the range 0 ­65535
"4-byte only AS Numbers" refers to AS Numbers in the range 1:0
65535:65535 (decimal range 65,536 - 4,294,967,295)
"4-byte AS Numbers" refers to AS Numbers in the range 0:0 ­
65535:65535 (decimal range 0 ­ 4,294,967,295)

Rationale:
Recent studies of AS number consumption rates indicate that
the existing 2-byte pool of unallocated AS Numbers will be
exhausted sometime in the period between 2010 and 2016, absent
of any concerted efforts of recovery of already-allocated AS
Numbers [1] [2]. Standardization work in the IETF has produced
a document that is currently being submitted as a Proposed
Standard that will expand the AS Number space to a 4-byte
field [3].

It is noted that some advance period may be required by
network operators to undertake the appropriate procedures
relating to support of 4-byte AS numbers, and while no flag
day is required in the transition to the longer AS Number
field, it is recognised that a prudent course of action is to
allow for allocation of these extended AS numbers well in
advance of an anticipated 2-byte AS Number exhaustion date.

This policy proposal details a set of actions and associated
dates for RIR AS Number allocation policies to assist in an
orderly transition to use of the 4-byte AS Number space.

The essential attributes of this policy proposal are to
facilitate the ease of transitional arrangements by equipment
vendors, network managers and network operations staff, to
provide the industry with some predictability in terms of
dates and associated actions with respect to registry
operational procedures for AS Number allocations.

References

[1]  Daily AS Number Report,
 http://www.potaroo.net/tools/asns
[2]  ASNs MIA: A Comparision of RIR Statistics and RIS
Reality, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0510/wilhelm.html
[3]  BGP Support for Four-octet AS Number Space,
draft-ietf-idr-as4bytes-12.txt

Timetable for implementation: Procedures to support this proposal need to be 
implemented by 1 January 2007