DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT Confederation Requirements, Fees and Policies DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT NOTE: This document is a draft and is subject to change. Contact hostmaster@apnic.net for clarification on any details found in this document or the document's applicability for any given situation. 1 Introduction APNIC, having limited resources, is unable to provide its services in the many languages and cultures of the Asia and Pacific Rim regions. As a means to improve allocation and registration services for the Asia Pacific Internet community, APNIC provides for the establishment of confederations of Internet service providing organizations. These confederations enable the provision of registry services in the local language and culture thereby providing the opportunity for better services. Originally, confederations derived from the concept of "national Network Information Centers", organizations which provide registry services on a national basis. As the Internet uses hierarchical addressing that corresponds to network topology and the topology of the Internet is defined by Internet service providers as opposed to geo-political topology, the concept of national NICs has been generalized to include any group of entities requiring independent and topologically significant address space. The creation of confederation has however resulted in several complications in the management of Internet administrative resources. These complications arise due to the added complexity APNIC faces in attempting to insure efficient address space utilization and appropriateness of allocation of autonomous system numbers with the added layer of indirection implied by confederations, the resource demands placed on APNIC as a result of confederation requests, and the need to insure confederation members are not subsidized by regular APNIC members. This document describes the steps necessary to form an APNIC confederation, the fees associated with confederations, and the delegation policies to confederations by APNIC. Any questions regarding these policies should be referred to hostmaster@apnic.net. 1.1 Definitions In an attempt to limit confusion over terminology, the following definitions are offered: "Internet administrative resources" are those resources administered by the Internet registry system including Internet addresses, autonomous system numbers, and in-addr.arpa domains associated with the Internet addresses administered by the registry. In keeping with standard registry terminology, a "delegation" is the transfer of Internet administrative resources from one organization to another. Delegations may be done "internally", e.g., within a single organization or "externally", e.g., between one organization and an independent outside organization. An "assignment" is the delegation of a resource to an end user organization with the understanding that there will be no further external delegation, that is, resources will only be sub-delegated internally. An "allocation" is the delegation of a resource to an organization which may subsequently sub-delegate the resource either as an assignment or as a sub-allocation. A "confederation" is defined to be an organization which acts on behalf of its membership in all interactions with APNIC and which allocates resources to its membership. A "confederation member" is defined to be an autonomous sub-entity of the confederation which requires an independently routable block of address space. An "autonomous sub-entity" may be an independent organization or an independently routable sub-region within a single organization. An "independently routable block" denotes a routing prefix which may generally be accepted for routing on the Internet according to current Internet operational practices. The size of a "routable prefix" is taken by APNIC to mean a /19 (8192 addresses). APNIC chooses /19 in order to be consistent with other regional registries, however APNIC can in no way assure address space it allocates is actually routed by service providers either now nor in the future. APNIC can only insure global uniqueness in the address space it delegates and as whether a given prefix is routed depends entirely on Internet service providers over which APNIC has no control, APNIC can provide no assurance the address space it allocates will be routed. 2 Establishment of a Confederation This section details the requirements for the establishment of a confederation. These requirements, while somewhat stringent, are put in place to insure address utilization is efficient and can be monitored by APNIC. In addition, the documentary requirements specified here enable confederations to share policies and procedures, thereby promoting consistency of delegation policies and providing models for confederations which are establishing themselves. In order for a confederation to be established, the following requirements must be met: 1. Submission and approval of the confederation's delegation policies document which includes: - A description of the confederation's allocation and assignment policies - A description of the mechanisms by which the confederation corroborates the sub-delegations made by the confederation's members These documents must be submitted in English and will be posted on the APNIC servers for public reference. In order to insure compliance with existing Internet resource delegation policies, APNIC will review these documents and may recommend changes prior to the creation of the confederation. Should a confederation update their delegation policies, APNIC should be informed of the changes as soon as possible. 2. Submission of the confederation's membership policies document which includes: - A description of the confederation's membership admittance policies - A description of the confederation's membership revocation policies These documents should be submitted in English and will be posted on the APNIC servers for public reference. As membership admittance and revocation are not related to resource delegation, APNIC will accept these documents without comment. 3. Submission of the confederation's membership list consisting of: - All confederation members' organization names - All confederation members' addresses - All confederation member's contact information including the administrative and technical contacts with (at a minimum) a telephone number and email address - Date when the members joined the confederation - A list of the resources allocated to each confederation member, including: - IP addresses - AS numbers This list should be inclusive of all resources the confederation's members are using whether allocated by APNIC, the confederation, or other registry and it is critical that this list be updated to reflect any changes in the confederation's membership that may occur. 4. Payment of all relevant fees for the establishment and operation of the confederation as described in section 3. 2.1 Discussion Confederations by definition delegate resources its membershi who will in turn sub-delegate those resources to other organizations. As such, it is important that APNIC have full knowledge and understanding of the policies under which the confederation operates. The requirement for documentation of the delegation policies of the confederation, both in terms of delegations as well as the method by which the confederation verifies the information provided to it by its membership, allows APNIC to understand the confederation's delegation policies and suggest modifications to those policies in order to conform with RFC 2050 and subsequent Internet resource delegation policies. In addition, the publication of confederation policies enables new confederations to reference existing policies thereby avoiding "re-inventing the wheel" as well as encouraging more consistent policies among all confederations. The requirement of submitting the confederation's membership policies is intended to allow APNIC to refer appropriate organizations to the confederation. While APNIC cannot require organizations to go to any particular confederation, APNIC will encourage organizations that fit the membership criteria to apply to appropriate confederations. The confederation's membership list is essential to insuring confederation members are not able to circumvent existing delegation policies by obtaining resources from multiple sources. As such it must be fully inclusive, listing all confederation members and including sufficient information to allow APNIC to verify confederation members are not already a member of APNIC or another confederation. Finally, the confederation fees are designed to insure regular APNIC members do not subsidize confederations and that APNIC has sufficient resources to provide services to both confederations and regular members. 3 Confederation Fees In the past, due to the treatment of confederations as individual regular APNIC members, fees paid by regular APNIC members could subsidize confederation members - APNIC's fees are based on cost recovery and historically APNIC's budget grows much more slowly than the number of members, thus the more members APNIC has, the lower the fee each organization is required to pay. Given confederations reduce the total number of organizations which would otherwise need to pay APNIC's fees, the regular members' fees could be argued to be higher than if confederations did not exist. In addition, due to the fact that confederations add a layer of indirection to the delegation of resources, APNIC must expend additional effort to insure confederation members are assigning resources efficiently and appropriately. While in many cases confederations are able to reduce the load on APNIC as there are fewer organizations APNIC must provide services for and the confederation manages the resources delegated to it efficiently, it has been the situation that there are some cases in which significantly more resources are expended to service confederation requests than requests from regular APNIC members. In order to insure regular APNIC members do not subsidize confederation members and that confederations provide sufficient funding to cover the cost of providing services to the confederations and regular members alike, fees must be charged for the establishment of confederations and those fees must scale with membership of the confederation. 3.1 The Per-Member Fee Schedule This fee schedule is based on the number of members the confederation has. Note that a confederation's membership is defined by the confederation itself - APNIC will not define the membership of a confederation. As will be discussed in the next section, the choice of whether a particular sub-entity is defined to be a member or not largely depends on how the confederation's address space will be accounted for. The per-member fee schedule is defined as: 1. A one time fee of US $1000.00 for account establishment. This fee is not applicable to confederations that have already been established. 2. A yearly membership fee based on the standard APNIC membership fee tiers (see table 3.1.1) Self-determined Size Yearly Fee Large US $10,000.00 Medium US $5,000.00 Small US $2,500.00 Table 3.1.1 Annual Membership Fees 3. A yearly fee of US $2000.00 per confederation member. As an means to effect transition to this fee structure for existing confederations, organizations which were accepted as confederations prior to March 31, 1997 will be assessed a graduated per member fee as described in table 3.1.2. Year Per Member Fee 1997 US $500.00 1998 US $800.00 1999 US $1100.00 2000 US $1400.00 2001 US $1700.00 2002+ US $2000.00 Table 3.1.2 Per Member Fee for existing confederations 3.2 Adding Confederation Members The per-member fee is based on a full year of confederation membership with the per-member fees for the upcoming year due on the confederation's anniversary date (that is, the end of the confederation's yearly membership term). As with regular membership, no refunds of per member fees are possible, however if an organization joins a confederation prior to the confederation's anniversary date, the confederation will be assessed a pro-rated fee based on the number of days left in the confederation's term for that member (rounded down to the nearest penny). More specifically, a new confederation member's fee would be: Fee = US $2000 * ( number of days left in confederation's term ) / 365 To illustrate the pro-rated fees for new confederation members, suppose a confederation adds a member 180 days prior to the confederation's anniverary date. The new member would be assessed a per member fee of: US $2000 * ( 180 / 365 ) = US $986.30 In the case where a confederation falls under the grandfathered fee schedule presented in table 3.1.2, the pro-rated fee would be based on the per member fee for the appropriate year. Confederation membership is defined by the confederation and is reported to APNIC either directly or when the confederation requests additional resources and lists the confederation members in the confederation resource request forms. 3.3 Removing Confederation Members In the event a confederation member elects to leave a confederation, no refunds are possible however APNIC should be notified at least 30 days prior to the confederation's anniversary date in order to avoid being assessed fees for the member in the upcoming term for the confederation. If the confederation member joins and then leaves the confederation within the confederation's membership term, the confederation will still be required to pay the pro-rated fee for the confederation member as if it had continued membership until the end of the confederation's term. 3.4 Examples In order to more fully illustrate the confederation fees, a series of examples are provided. 3.4.1 New Small Confederation with Three Members Assume a confederation that defines itself to be small is established with three members. This confederation will be assessed the fees described below: Fee Description Fee One-time startup US $1,000.00 Yearly membership fee US $2,500.00 Per-confederation member fee US $2,000.00 * 3 = US $6,000.00 Total US $9,500 It may be noted that each of the confederation members will enjoy a savings of US $333.33 from the fees that would otherwise be assessed if the organizations were to become regular APNIC members individually. 3.4.2 New Large Confederation with Mid-Term Member Assume a confederation that defines itself to be large has three members and a new member joins the confederation 180 days prior to the end of the confederation's term of membership. When the confederation is established, it will be assessed fees as described below: Fee Description Fee One-time startup US $1,000.00 Yearly membership fee US $10,000.00 Per-confederation member fee 3 * US $2,000.00 = US $6,000.00 Total US $17,000.00 When the confederation renews its membership, it will be assessed the following fees: Fee Description Fee Yearly membership fee US $10,000.00 Per-confederation member fee 4 * US $2,000.00 = US $8,000.00 Pro-rated fee for new confederation member for the 180/365 * US $2000.00 = previous partial year of US $986.30 service Total US $18,986.30 3.4.3 Existing Medium Confederation with Mid-Term Members Assume a confederation established prior to March 31, 1997 has defined itself to be medium sized. The confederation has 10 members and adds four new members 275 days prior to its anniversary date. In the year prior to the addition of the new members, the confederation would be assessed the following fees (for 1997): Fee Description Fee Yearly membership fee US $5,000.00 Per-confederation member fee (for members who were part of confederation prior to Mar 31, US $500.00 * 10 = US $5,000.00 1997) Total US $10,000.00 In 1998, the confederation would be assessed the following fees: Fee Description Fee Yearly membership fee US $5,000.00 Per-confederation member fee (for members who were part of confederation prior to Mar 31, US $800.00 * 14 = US $11,200.00 1997) Pro-rated fee for partial year US $500.00 * 4 * 275 / 365 = of service for new members US $1,506.84 Total US $17,706.84 4 APNIC Address Delegation Policies to Confederations As delegations to confederations follow standard "slow-start" procedures similar to that of allocations to regular APNIC members, delegation policies to confederations have two categories, the initial delegation and delegations made when address space has been consumed. 4.1 Initial Address Delegations Confederations are initially delegated a /19 per confederation member after they meet the requirements described in section two. Note: the minimum allocation unit made by APNIC to confederations is a /19 (8192 addresses) as this quantity of addresses is the customary "maximum prefix length" generally accepted for routing as discussed in the introduction. Confederations are assumed to sub-delegate at least a /19 to its members. Confederation should not sub-delegate longer prefixes except under very unusual circumstances. nIn the case where a confederation member has not consumed previously allocated resources (e.g., when a confederation member moves from regular APNIC member status to a confederation member), APNIC will defer allocation of the /19 until the confederation member has exhausted its existing space. In the case where a confederation member has not received any previous delegation of resources, APNIC will delegate a /19 to the confederation. The confederation is assumed to immediately sub-delegate the /19 to the confederation membership. APNIC will only delegate /19s to the confederation for organizations which are listed in the confederation's membership list. When a new organization joins a confederation, the confederation must notify APNIC of the new member before an initial (or additional) delegation can be made. 4.2 Subsequent Address Delegations APNIC maintains an "allocation window" which defines how much address space a confederation may sub-delegate to its membership without a second opinion from APNIC. Initially, the confederation's allocation window is zero (0) addresses implying the confederation may not sub-delegate addresses to a confederation member without obtaining a second opinion from APNIC. As the confederation gains experience in delegating addresses to its members, APNIC will open the window (by /19s) to allow the confederation to allocate more and more address space autonomously. When a confederation member has consumed the address space delegated to it, either via assignments to customers or via use for internal infrastructure, the confederation member will contact the confederation for additional address space. The confederation is required to verify the confederation member has: 1. Assigned address space efficiently, in particular that the amount of address space assigned conforms to the documented requirements of the confederation member's customers, i.e., the confederation member is not assigning a "class C" or other fixed address size per customer. 2. Updated the APNIC database appropriately, specifically that all reassignments can be found within the APNIC database. This may be done directly by the confederation member (encouraged) or via the confederation which submits reassignments on behalf of its membership. 3. Has consumed at least 75% of the space allocated to it, including both internal infrastructure and customer delegations. If all three of these conditions are met, the confederation should allocate additional address space to the confederation member. The amount of additional address space allocated depends on how well the confederation member has conformed to the delegation policies defined in RFC 2050, by APNIC, and by the confederation, but in all cases must be less than the allocation window as defined by APNIC. If the confederation has insufficient space to satisfy its member's request, the confederation should contact APNIC to obtain additional space. In order for APNIC to allocate additional address space, the confederation must provide (via ftp://ftp.apnic.net/apnic/docs/confed-ip-request): 1. An exhaustive list of all delegations and reservations the confederation has made to demonstrate it has insufficient address space to cover the request of the confederation member. This list must document all address space delegated to the confederation by APNIC and the subsequent sub-delegation to confederation members. 2. An exhaustive list of the assignments and/or allocations in "cust-network" format made by the confederation member which has exhausted its address space. When this information is provided, APNIC will verify the APNIC database has been updated (either directly by the confederation member or via the confederation) and that address space was allocated appropriately by the confederation and assigned efficiently by the confederation member which has consumed its space. Assuming address space has been delegated efficiently both by the confederation and the confederation member, APNIC will delegate additional address space to the confederation. APNIC will only verify the assignments of the confederation member which has consumed the address space delegated to it. Other confederation member's assignments will not be used in determining whether the confederation requires additional address space. However, APNIC will maintain a history of all allocations the confederation has made and may request additional information should there be any confusion on the status of address space delegated to the confederation. Should a confederation member have not assigned address space efficiently, APNIC may not delegate additional address space to the confederation for subsequent sub-delegation to that member. However, should another confederation member exhaust its address space, APNIC may delegate address space to the confederation for the second member. 4.3 Summary Address delegation procedures to confederations can be summarized as: * A confederation will receive a /19 for each of its members that are either new or have exhausted their previously allocated space. * When a confederation member has exhausted its address space, it should contact its confederation for additional address space. The confederation will verify the confederation member has: 1. Used its address space efficiently 2. Updated the APNIC database 3. Consumed at least 75% of the space delegated to it Assuming these conditions are met, the confederation should delegate additional space to the confederation member * If a confederation has insufficient address space to satisfy a confederation member's request, the confederation may request additional space from APNIC by providing (via the confed-ip-request form): 1. A summary of all delegations the confederation has made 2. A summary of all delegations the confederation member which has run out of address space has made. Assuming all the conditions listed above are met, APNIC will allocate additional address space to the confederation should it be necessary. 5 Autonomous Number Delegation Policies Autonomous system numbers are delegated to confederations under a similar "slow-start" procedure as was described in the previous section. Initially, APNIC will delegate four (4) AS numbers to a confederation. When this initial block of AS numbers has been assigned and the APNIC database has been updated to reflect the reassignments (see ftp://ftp.apnic.net/apnic/docs/database-update-info), APNIC will allocate additional AS numbers. The actual number of additional AS numbers delegated will depend on the confederation's conformance to the allocation policies described in RFC 1930, but typically the total number of ASes delegated to the confederation will be doubled. 6 Conclusions This document has provided the requirements for establishing and operating a confederation. Confederations are designed to allow for a higher level of service in resource delegation than can be possible given the limited resources of APNIC. The guidelines and fee structures presented here are intended to allow confederations to continue to be created and operated while at the same time insuring APNIC continues to exist to provide the resources the confederation needs.