6bone Prequalification for Sub-TLA assignment - draft 3, May 4, 1999

[Bob Fink]

6bone Folk, 

The 6bone has finished a review of the 2nd draft of the "6bone Prequalification for Sub-TLA assignment", with mostly commentary about the issues of how tough or easy to be in handing out addresses, whether one should use the existing registries, whether the price is fair, etc. Nothing in these comments has suggested any specific changes to the draft (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Below is the 3rd draft of the 6bone Prequalification for sub-TLA assignment. I have fixed the time lines and number of participating sites, and cleaned up the text to make it more like a finalized procedure. 

At this stage, I would like to let this draft wait until we see the finalization of the "IPv6 ASSIGNMENT AND ALLOCATION POLICY DOCUMENT" and have to institute our 6bone prequalification process in fact (presumably as some existing pTLAs ask for 6bone fitness reports supporting their requests for sub-TLA allocations from the RIRs).


In addition, the "IPv6 ASSIGNMENT AND ALLOCATION POLICY DOCUMENT" (5th draft 16 April 1999) was released that refers to the use of the 6bone for a "4.2.2 Criteria for sub-TLA Allocations in Transitional "Bootstrap" Phase" which I have copied here:

>OR d. The requesting organization must demonstrate that it has experience 
>with IPv6 through active use of a pseudo-TLA (pTLA) registered to it for at 
>least six months prior to requesting a sub-TLA. The regional IRs may require 
>documentation of acceptable 6Bone routing policies and practice from the 
>requesting organization. 

I have requested they change this as follows:

>Maybe it should be "The requesting organization must demonstrate that it has 
>experience with IPv6 through active participation in the 6bone for 6 months, 
>with at least 3 months of that operating as a pseudo-TLA (pTLA), prior to 
>being allocated a sub-TLA." to be consistent with the current 6bone prequal 
>process we have agreed on so far.


Thanks,

Bob

------------------
6bone Prequalification for Sub-TLA Assignment - 3rd draft 2, May 4, 1999 -
Bob Fink

The following describes how the 6bone is used as a prequalification step 
during the "bootstrap" phase of sub-TLA assignment by the Regional 
Internet Registries (RIRs):

It is predicated on the following facts:

F1. The 6bone community represents the world-wide IPv6 operational
networking community as of early 1999, including all existing IPv6
providers and users in the world, operating under the only IPv6 address
allocation and authority in place at that time, i.e., the 3FFE::/16
allocation to the 6bone under RFC 2471 ("IPv6 Testing Address Allocation")
<ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2471.txt>.

F2. The 6bone has a well defined address structure underneath the RFC 2471
allocation for high-level (top tier) transit service providers, known as a
Pseudo-TLA (pTLA), that all the known top level IPv6 transit providers are
part of. See <http://www.6bone.net/6bone-testv2-addr-usage.html> for
documentation of the pTLA structure.

F3. The 6bone process for becoming a Pseudo-TLA (pTLA) is well defined and
accepted by the 6bone community. See Informational RFC 2546 
<ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2546.txt> Section 7 for current Guidelines
for 6Bone pTLA sites.

F4. The 6bone community as a whole is willing to provide their knowledge,
experience and opinions as part of a process to help "bootstrap" the
sub-TLA address allocation process for the RIRs.

===
6bone Prequalification for sub-TLAs 

S1. The sub-TLA requestor (sTR) places their sub-TLA request with the
appropriate RIR and declares that they intend to use the 6bone
prequalification process (6PP). (Optional, based on RIR policy.)

S2. The sTR notifies the 6bone list of their intent to use
the 6PP. (This assists the 6bone in establishing the time of first
contact starting the process, but does not constitute the actual start 
of participation in the 6bone.)

S3. The sTR follows the published process for becoming a pTLA. This
process is documented by [RFC 2546] Section 7. The minimum time from first 
joining the 6bone as an end-site network to becoming a pTLA is set as 
3 months. 

S4. After the sTR has been approved as a pTLA, and operating as a pTLA for
at least 3 months with at least 3 customers (either lower level transits or
end-sites), the pTR petitions the 6bone mailing list for support of its 
request for a sub-TLA based on its performance as a pTLA, providing 
relevant proof or statement of how and/or why they believe they have met 
current 6bone backbone practices (currently as in RFC 2546).

S5. A 6bone steering group (consisting of 3-5 persons established by 6bone
participant consensus) prepares a short 6bone fitness report (6FR) based 
on input received from 6bone participants, and factual information of 
compliance with established pTLA rules extant at the time (currently RFC 
2546). It then submits the 6FR to the appropriate regsitry. 
Note that 6bone participant means members of pTLA, pNLA or end-site 
organizations, not mailing list subscribers.

S6. If after two months of petitioning the 6bone mailing list (S4. above) 
for support of its sub-TLA request with no response, the sTR may notify 
the appropriate RIR of 6bone non-responsiveness and ask for the RIR to 
proceed without a 6FR. (It is up to the RIR to decide what to do next, 
including the decision that the sTR's experience with the 6bone qualifies 
it for a sTLA allocation.)

S7. After assignment of an sub-TLA to the sTR (by the RIR), the sTR may
optionally renumber from the 6bone pTLA prefeix to the sub-TLA prefix, or
continue use of their pTLA. If the pTLA space becomes over subscribed, the
most likely networks to be asked to surrender their pTLA would be those
holding production TLA/sub-TLA prefix space.

===
Misc. Notes:

N1. Currently the RFC 2546 doc is being reworked under the 6bone hardening
process now underway, which will almost certainly yield a stronger set of
rules on what it takes to operate as a pTLA.

N2. The current RFC 2546 doc does not specify a prequalification time as a
pNLA or end-site 6bone site prior to requesting a pTLA. Thus these 
prequalification rules have established the minimum time of 3 months from 
first joining the 6bone as an end-site network to becoming a pTLA.

N3. In S6. above, the total time from start of the 6PP until a protest
could be made to the RIR, would be in the 8 months minimum (3 mos.
while becoming a pTLA, 3 mos. while a pTLA, plus 2 mos.).

N4. Some existing pTLA sites should not be allocated a sub-TLA as they are 
not production networks, rather they were created to "bootstrap" the 6bone 
or help a specific testing user community. The decision on what pTLA may 
or may not qualify for a sub-TLA is left to the process outlined above, 
and the RIR processes for allocating sub-TLAs.

-end