








                 RIPE NCC Quarterly Report

                   Issue 3 December 1992

                    Document-ID: ripe-79





1.  Introduction

RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) is a collaborative organisation
open to all European Internet service providers.  The objec-
tive of RIPE is to ensure the necessary administrative and
technical coordination to allow the operation of a panEuro-
pean IP network.  RIPE does not operate a network of its
own.

RIPE has been functioning since 1989.  Currently more than
60 organisations participate in the work.  The result of the
RIPE coordination effort is that the individual end-user is
presented on their desktop with a uniform IP service
irrespective of the particular network his or her worksta-
tion is attached to.  In December 1992 more than 284,000
hosts throughout Europe are reachable via networks coordi-
nated by RIPE.  The total number of systems reachable world-
wide is estimated at more than one million.

The RIPE Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) is a Euro-
pean organisation chartered to support all those RIPE
activities which cannot be effectively performed by
volunteers from the participating organisations.  As such,
it provides a wide range of technical and administrative
support to network operators in the Internet community
across Europe.  The charter of the NCC is formally described
in the NCC Activity Plan (document ripe-35 in the RIPE docu-
ment store).  The RIPE NCC currently has 3 permanent staff
members.  The RARE association provides the formal framework
for the NCC.  Funding for the first year of operation of the
NCC is provided by EARN, the national members of RARE,
Israel and EUnet.

This is the third quarterly report produced by the RIPE NCC.
As before, comments and suggestions are very welcome.
                           - 2 -


     Note on Statistics

     The arrangement of categories including country
     codes in some statistical tables and figures have
     been standardised to make the data more easily
     comparable between different tables and editions
     of these reports. As a consequence some categories
     appear with no data and/or seemingly nonsensical
     combinations.

     In the PostScript version of this document much
     information is presented both in graphical and in
     table form.  This apparent duplication is neces-
     sary because the graphics cannot be represented in
     the ASCII version of the document which has to
     contain the same information as the PostScript
     version.
                           - 3 -


2.  Management Summary

RIPE NCC services have been running smoothly during the
reporting period.  We have made numerous small improvements
in a number of areas. No major additional activities have
been started.  In general the three months have been used to
further consolidate the services and activities as well as
the procedures for interaction with external organisations,
mainly the local Internet registries.

Delegated Internet Registry

Procedures for the European Internet registry have been
further consolidated and continue to run smoothly.  More
than 6000 network numbers have been assigned during the
reporting period.  Interactions with the global Internet
registry can still be improved.

RIPE Database

The next big functional improvement of the RIPE database
will be the inclusion of routing information.  To this end
an update procedure for this information has been designed
and implemented.  During the next period the specifications
for the representation of routing information will be
refined and the database populated with this information.

Information Services

The NCC information services have been running smoothly and
continue to be well used.  We have installed a World Wide
Web (WWW) server in order to provide an additional access
method to the RIPE document store.

New Projects

Preparations have been made for the start of project work to
be executed at the NCC in conjunction with the RARE techni-
cal programme.  One of these projects is expected to help
with the adding of routing information to the database.

Priorities

There still have not been enough resources to actively pur-
sue activities from the activity plan which so far have not
been started.  The NCC still seeks guidance from RIPE as to
the relative priority of these activities
                           - 4 -


3.  Activities

3.1.  DNS Coordination

There has been a slight change in the collection process for
the DNS data for the RIPE Hostcount.  For the two largest
countries, Germany and the United Kingdom, the collection of
the data is done within the country, and afterward collected
at the NCC, for inclusion in the statistics.  This change
was done to decrease the time needed for gathering all the
data, as well as to decrease the impact of connectivity
problems encountered when gathering all data centrally.
Organisations willing to participate in the distributed
counting mechanism should contact the RIPE NCC.

Other than that, nothing much has changed in the procedure.
The latest hostcount shows a total of over 284,000 hosts in
Europe.

In the hostcount, any machine that appears in the Domain
Name System with a A record is counted as a host.  Hosts
with more than one A record are only counted once, and hosts
with the same A record, but different domain names inside
the same top level domain are also counted just once.  All
DNS output, not just the A records, are saved and are avail-
able in the RIPE document store, two files for each country:
the standard output, and the error messages.  Please check
the README file in ftp.ripe.net:ripe/hostcount for more
details.
                           - 5 -


                    1990   Oct    26141
                           Nov    33665
                           Dec    29226
                    1991   Jan    43799
                           Feb    44000
                           Mar    44506
                           Apr    46948
                           May    52000
                           Jun    63267
                           Jul    67000
                           Aug    73069
                           Sep    92834
                           Oct   104828
                           Nov   129652
                           Dec   133000
                    1992   Jan   141308
                           Feb   161431
                           Mar   167931
                           Apr   170000
                           May   182528
                           Jun   196758
                           Jul   213017
                           Aug   221951
                           Sep   232522
                           Oct   254585
                           Nov   271795
                           Dec   284374



3.2.  Internet Registry

Delegated Registry

In the last quarterly report (RIPE document ripe-73) the
recent changes in the administrative arrangements for
obtaining IP numbers were described.  Briefly under the new
arrangements from August 1st 1992 onwards all European
requests for IP numbers have been forwarded by the global
Internet registry (IR, otherwise known as
hostmaster@nic.ddn.mil)to the RIPE NCC for processing.  Thus
the RIPE NCC has successfully fulfilled the role of regional
Internet registry for a period of 5 months, handling both
e-mail, fax and letter applications.  This means that Europe
is operating for quite some time already ahead of schedule
at stage 3 of the `Schedule for IP Address Space Guidelines'
(RFC1367).

Recently some slight problems have manifested themselves in
the interaction between the RIPE NCC and the global regis-
try.  We assume that this is mainly due to general cautious-
ness of the IR caused by the ongoing solicitation procedure
for the INTERNIC in the US.  Since an award has been made on
the very last day of the reporting period we will now work
                           - 6 -


to get these problems resolved quickly.  Our reporting of
the problems should not be construed as criticism of the IR
or the people involved there.  The working relationship with
them has been excellent.

Registration Procedures

Current procedures as described in the last quarterly report
and document ripe72 have been streamlined and improved upon
significantly. Facilitating this, has been the increase in
the number of local registries.  Especially the number of
local `non-provider' registries has increased.  These are
registries to whom the NCC is able to forward all requests
from organisations without IP service providers.  The work
of the `non-provider' registries is much appreciated, espe-
cially since they are not charging for this community ser-
vice.  Also additional IP service providers have made them-
selves known to the NCC, enabling further delegation of
blocks of class C numbers.

To date, local non-provider registries exist for the follow-
ing countries: Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark,
Spain, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Israel, Italy, The
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and The Soviet Union
(covering the states/countries which comprised the former
Soviet Union).  New registries established since the last
quarter comprise Denmark, Poland and Italy.

We are also beginning to notice a shift in the flow of
requests.  There are more direct requests coming into the
NCC, bypassing the global registry.  This is due to informa-
tion about new procedures slowly spreading throughout the
Internet.

Thus when an application is received by the NCC for an IP
network number there are two possible actions.  Either the
application is forwarded to a local registry and a letter is
sent to both the applicant and the local registry informing
them of the action.  Included in the letter are contact
details for the relevant local registry.  Alternatively, if
no appropriate local registry exists, the application is
processed directly by the NCC.

The local registries send information about the assignments
they make to a special mailbox at the NCC for automatic
inclusion in the RIPE database and forwarding to the global
registry.  During the reporting period the latter forwarding
has been automated using a general exchange format for
Internet registration databases agreed by the DDN NIC (glo-
bal registry), MERIT and the RIPE NCC.  The RIPE NCC has
fully implemented automatic forwarding of all European
assignments using this exchange format.  However the
automatic forwarding procedure has been stopped on request
of the DDN NIC until the necessary software is operational
                           - 7 -


there.

Class B Network Numbers

The NCC still performs all actual class B assignments.  The
current procedure is to briefly evaluate the request, if
needed consulting an appropriate local registry.  In approx-
imately 80% of the cases the request is found unjustified
according to the criteria agreed with the global registry
and IANA (see RFC1136).  In these cases the NCC forwards the
request to the appropriate local registry for assignment of
class C network number(s).  If a class B network number is
justified, the NCC will allocate out of a small pool it
keeps for this purpose and notifies any local registry
involved.

During the reporting period the pool has been depleted down
to 3 network numbers.  The NCC has requested another 20
numbers from the Internet registry.  To date this request
has not been fulfilled with reference to RFC1366.  RFC 1366
reads: `The IANA and the IR will maintain sole responsibil-
ity for the Class B number space.  Where there are desig-
nated regional registries, those registries will act in an
auxiliary capacity in evaluating requests for Class B
numbers.' When the RFC was discussed at the Paris RIPE meet-
ing the expectation was that the definition of "sole respon-
sibility" would not mean a change in actual procedures.
Apparently now the procedures have changed and it is not
clear what the actual procedures are, e.g.  whether the RIPE
NCC is being consulted by the global registry on all Euro-
pean B requests.

We feel that a four stage consultation process is not work-
able since there are too many problems and misunderstandings
in the flow of information between requester, global regis-
try, RIPE NCC and local registry.  We therefore propose to
continue working with the present procedures.  In our opin-
ion RFC1366 need not be changed for that.  The formal
responsibility should still be with IANA, however IANA
should delegate that responsibility to the NCC for Europe
just as it delegates it to other registries for other parts
of the world.  In the meantime we have not changed our B
allocation procedures working from the block of numbers
currently reserved.

As mentioned in the last quarterly report some European
organisations still have (sometimes quite large) blocks of
class B numbers. The total extent of this is presently unk-
nown as we do not know which European organisations hold
such blocks.  At the last meeting RIPE asked the NCC to try
to recover as many as possible of such unused class B net-
work numbers.  In order to start this repeated requests were
made to the Internet Registry for details of all European
allocations of class B's.  To date no information has been
                           - 8 -


received.  We will therefore publish a request to all Euro-
pean organisations holding such blocks to return them to the
RIPE NCC.

Reverse Name Lookup for 193.x.y.0 Networks

On behalf of the local registries the NCC has proposed to
the IR to delegate the DNS zone 193.in-addr.arpa to the RIPE
NCC.  This would enable us to delegate subdomains
corresponding to block allocations to the local registries.
The advantage of this procedure would be that a local regis-
try assigning a (block of) class C addresses could make
reverse name lookup operational immediately without involve-
ment of the IR.  This decentralised procedure would be much
quicker than the present one and prevent lots of user confu-
sion, since the data will be maintained much closer to its
source. The IR has reacted positively to this proposal but
no concrete action has resulted during the reporting period.

Common Template

In the last quarterly report, the need for a common European
registration template was identified.  The aim of the common
template is to simplify and streamline the handling of IP
network number requests and allocations across Europe.  By
improving the quality of information received on each appli-
cation, especially with regard to applications for class B
network numbers, it is anticipated that the processing time
for each application will decrease.  During the reporting
period the NCC with the help of local registries has drafted
a template form and the accompanying documentation.  This
template will be discussed at the coming RIPE meeting.

NCC Workload and Performance

In order to quantify the workload generated at the NCC and
to monitor the service quality, the NCC has kept a log of
actions related to the delegated registry function.  The
statistics below relate to the period October December.
Direct comparisons cannot be made with the previous statis-
tics reported in the last quarter (numbers in brackets)
since the reporting period for these statistics covered mid
August until the end of September.

The total number of applications received over the last
quarter was 178 (172).  Of these 97 (100) were received from
the IR, 5 (13) were received from the local registries and
76 (59) were sent directly to the NCC.  We have not logged
most cases where we just passed on the address of the
appropriate local registry without receiving an actual
application.  The most significant of these statistics con-
cerns the number of applications now being sent directly to
the NCC.  This is a result of the information pointer refer-
ring to the NCC as the European Registry in the IR archives
                           - 9 -


and other places.  It also shows that a lot of information
still circulating does not refer to the RIPE NCC.

The most frequently used method of applying for IP numbers
is still paper (including faxes) accounting for over 50% of
the total number of applications. Faxes account for 65% of
the information sent out by the NCC.  This reflects the fact
that many organisations do not have e-mail connections.
Applications from those organisations that do have e-mail
connectivity comprise approximately 30%.  Telephone applica-
tions account for 11% of the total again without counting
simple referrals to local registries by telephone.

FAX software which enables NCC staff to send and file outgo-
ing FAX messages from within their e-mail environment has
now been installed. This has quite significantly reduced the
overhead associated with replying to incoming faxes.  This
is evident in the statistics which show that 86% (63.4%) of
all requests were answered (not only acknowledged) on the
day they were received.  97.4% of all requests were pro-
cessed within 7 days.  Given that this figure includes deal-
ing with class B requests, which often require further
information to be sought from the applicant which is a time
consuming process, the response times are very good.
Achieving such excellent response times could not be
achieved without the help of the local registries.  Our
thanks are extended to them for their work.

Address Space Usage

During the reporting period the NCC assigned 11 class B net-
work numbers, delegated 39.5 blocks of class C network
numbers and reserved 16.5 blocks of class C network numbers.
The assignment and reservation of class C blocks was done in
accordance with the CIDR scheme to allow route aggregation
in the future.  It should be noted that blocks are reserved
based on usage estimates given by the local registries for a
period of about 24 months.  Should the assignment rate
differ from the estimated one, reserved blocks can and will
be used for other purposes if necessary.

During the reporting period the European registries have
assigned a total of 6015 class C networks to bring the total
of networks assigned from blocks delegated by the NCC to
7113.

The detailed status of the address space delegated to the
RIPE NCC can be found in "Appendix B" on page 26 and "Appen-
dix C" on page 27 for class B and class C network numbers
respectively.
                           - 10 -


3.3.  RIPE Network Management Database

Database Software

The database software has been released for use by local
registries. Unfortunately some minor extensions agreed at
the last meeting have not been incorporated during the
reporting period.  They will be included during the next
quarter.  Fortunately no complaints have been received about
this.

During the previous quarter the database support (update)
software had been revised to add functionality and be more
readily configurable. During the reporting period similar
improvements for the database software itself have been stu-
died.  After some study, prototype software had been written
in the PERL language showing the feasibility of functional-
ity improvements.

Database Updates

The frequency of update runs remains at once per working day
with an occasional run skipped and some days with multiple
runs as demanded by the volume of updates received.  This
ensures that users perceive the database update process as
predictable.  During the reporting period the NCC has pro-
cessed 14425 object updates, an average of 240 per working
day.  The number of updates received per month varies widely
with peaks usually occurring just before RIPE meetings.

The updates consist of additions and changes as well as so
called "NOOPs".  NOOPs are updates received which do not
differ from the information already recorded in the data-
base.  The NCC accepts such requests because it makes bulk
updates from secondary NICs easier: secondary NICs can just
send in their whole database without having to select just
the records which changed since the last bulk update was
sent to the NCC.


 Database Action    June 1992      Q3 1992        Q4 1992
                    abs   perc     abs   perc    abs   perc

 Updated            286   16%     1372    8%    9235   64%
 Added              483   27%     2505   14%    3632   11%
 NOOP              1005   57%    13578   78%    1558   25%



Database Statistics

The number of networks in the database has increased signi-
ficantly due to the large number of newly assigned class C
network numbers.
                           - 11 -


             Month    Nets    Persons   Domains

             Nov 90     643     670         0
             Jun 91    1270    1053       845
             Jan 92    2728    1792      1254
             Apr 92    3365    2242      1360
             Jun 92    3797    2736      1422
             Sep 92    4172    4594      1549
             Dec 92   11080    6116      1680


The database coverage has increased slightly but is still
lower than it should be.


      Country    Nets    Nets     % Q2    % Q3    % Q4
                in DNS   in DB       %       %       %

      SI           1        1                    100.0
      BE           9        9    100.0   100.0   100.0
      CS          26       26    100.0   100.0   100.0
      HU           8        8    100.0   100.0   100.0
      TN           1        1    100.0   100.0   100.0
      YU           4        2    100.0   100.0    50.0
      FR         383      362     94.1    95.5    94.5
      ES          24       23     91.7    88.9    95.8
      CH         103       88     87.6    93.1    85.4
      IE          22       19     87.5    90.9    86.4
      PL          22       22     86.7    90.0   100.0
      PT          51       44     85.0    80.0    86.3
      IT         122       99     84.5    82.4    81.1
      NL         110       95     82.9    80.9    86.4
      DE         394      327     82.5    80.5    83.0
      GR          12        9     78.6    66.7    75.0
      IS           6        5     75.0    50.0    83.3
      IL          25       19     73.9    71.4    76.0
      UK         280      198     67.3    67.8    70.7
      AT          76       63     67.2    63.8    82.9
      SE         174      104     57.8    49.3    59.8
      NO          54       38     56.9    58.5    70.4
      DK          28       11     45.0    40.0    39.3
      LU           5        3     33.3    50.0    60.0
      FI         196       77      8.8     6.9    39.3



Worldwide Database Coordination

The NCC has developed software to generate and accept the
recently agreed registry database exchange format.  During
the reporting period there was little progress while we are
waiting for the other registries to be ready for test
exchanges.
                           - 12 -


Routing Information

A separate update procedure for routing information has been
designed and implemented.  This procedure will be used by
routing `guardians' to control network membership to routing
related groups of networks.

The RIPE NCC has also helped to start refining the represen-
tation of routing information in the database in order to
make it better understandable and better meet the current
environment.  In this context a project has been defined
which will make use of the routing information stored in the
database to provide routing service for European networks to
the Global Internet Exchange (GIX).
                           - 13 -


3.4.  Document Store

The document store is maintained as a reference point for
information that will be useful to network service provid-
ers, NICs, NOCs alike.  The documents stored relate to a
wide variety of networking topics.  For example, information
can be obtained about the activities EBONE, the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Engineering
Steering Group (IESG), RARE, and not least, documents relat-
ing to RIPE itself.  In addition the document store contains
information relating to Internet drafts and RFC's.  In addi-
tion the EARN newsletter is now available in subdirectory
EARN.  All four editions of the newsletter (from 1992) are
available.

In total the document store contains approximately 2100
documents.  By volume, it accounts for over 175 Mbytes.A
breakdown of the composition of the document store is shown
below


             Area               Files   KBytes

             rfc                 618    41772
             tools               183    39006
             internet-drafts     565    33418
             nsfnet              119    15788
             ripe                326    23505
             rare                209    11419
             ietf                756     7475
             iesg                 46      467
             ebone                29      491
             internet-society     19      665
             earn                  5      167


Revision of the RIPE archives

As reported in the last quarterly report, the RIPE archives
in the document store have been substantially revised in
both structure and format.  All RIPE documents are now
located in a ripe/docs/ directory, which is further divided
into the following subdirectories:


        ripe-agenda/

        ripe-current/

        ripe-docs/

        ripe-drafts/

        ripe-minutes/
                           - 14 -


Accessing the Document Store

The NCC document store can be accessed through a variety of
methods. Besides methods of access as previously reported,
(via anonymous ftp to ftp.ripe.net and by using GOPHER and
WAIS clients to gopher.ripe.net or wais.ripe.net respec-
tively and through the NCC Interactive Information Server)
the document store can now be accessed via pilot World Wide
Web (WWW).  WWW is a method of presenting information based
on the user making choices of key words (indicated with a
number in brackets at the side of the word) which on selec-
tion "expand" to give a deeper level of information relating
to that word.  WWW is currently at the pilot stage.

FTP Usage Statistics

The most popular archive sections of the RIPE document store
are tabulated below.  This displays the top 15 most popular
sections which were accessed using ftp.The most popular sec-
tion is the ripe database, with approximately 870 Mbytes
transferred:


  Archive            Files       Bytes   % files   % bytes
  Section             sent        sent      sent      sent

  ripe/dbase          991    869400847    11.05     54.45
  ripe/docs          2133    230213789    23.79     14.42
  rfc                1787    145185345    19.93      9.09
  ripe/hostcount      714     77633923     7.96      4.86
  tools/www           297     76948856     3.31      4.82
  nsf                 400     41090123     4.46      2.57
  tools/conf           91     36996454     1.01      2.32
  tools/wais          140     23403957     1.56      1.47
  ripe/maps           185     13464608     2.06      0.84
  internet-drafts     122      8453373     1.36      0.53
  nsf/recompete        55      8185394     0.61      0.51
  tools/gopher         99      7288116     1.10      0.46
  internet-society     80      6687213     0.89      0.42
  rare/archive        240      6191833     2.68      0.39
  rare/RTR             24      5170989     0.27      0.32
                           - 15 -


The number of Mbytes transferred using ftp per top level
domain is shown below:

 Domain Name   Files Sent   Bytes Sent   % files   % bytes

 UNKNOWN          503        51204567      5.61      3.21
 at                99         9180269      1.10      0.57
 au                12          900048      0.13      0.06
 be                83        14129626      0.93      0.88
 br                 5          934156      0.06      0.06
 ca                38         2385199      0.42      0.15
 ch               503       144382113      5.61      9.04
 cl                 1            1970      0.01      0.00
 com              489       124706428      5.45      7.81
 cs               107         4604605      1.19      0.29
 de               906        87395617     10.10      5.47
 dk                61         9234800      0.68      0.58
 edu              543       121280238      6.06      7.60
 ee                 0               0      0         0
 es               169         8976533      1.88      0.56
 fi               958       292153550      1        10.68
 fr               174        39248067      1.94      2.46
 gov               52        11432336      0.58      0.72
 gr               573        78543493      6.39      4.92
 hk                 0               0      0         0
 hu                85         4844867      0.95      0.30
 ie                65         6104140      0.72      0.38
 il                16         3507391      0.18      0.22
 in                15          706370      0.17      0.04
 is                 6          802145      0.07      0.05
 it               507        67243159      5.65      4.21
 jp                 0               0      0         0
 kr                 0               0      0         0
 lu                 7         1943250      0.08      0.12
 mil               52         4559751      0.58      0.29
 mx                 0               0      0         0
 net              928       280696668     10.35     17.58
 nl               408        77324692      4.55      4.84
 no                39        14880150      0.43      0.93
 nz                 0               0      0         0
 org               28         4594701      0.31      0.29
 pl               283        16785025      3.16      1.05
 pt               954        92687125     10.64      5.80
 se               185         9761543      2.06      0.61
 sg                 1           47975      0.01      0.00
 su                 0               0      0         0
 tw                 5          191270      0.06      0.01
 uk                87         8169431      0.97      0.51
 us                 1             134      0.01      0.00
 yu                14         1137922      0.16      0.07
 za                 4           92910      0.04      0.01
                           - 16 -


The UNKNOWN category refers to where there is no match found
between the IP address and the Domain Name.

Interactive Information Server

Once again the NCC would like to stress the idea behind the
Interactive Information Server (IIS) and to encourage its
usage.  Therefore we make no apologies for repeating the
information (although abbreviated) in this paragraph.

The goal of the IIS is to enable users with minimal hardware
and/or software support to access information stored by the
NCC.  The IIS is also the most convenient method to access
the RIPE document store from networks which are not IP
based.  At the same time it caters for those occasional
users who do not choose to run or learn the local WAIS,
GOPHER etc.  clients.  It is possible to access the informa-
tion in the document store using both telnet and pad connec-
tions.  In addition the server provides an interface to a
number of clients enabling a wide range of information to be
accessed in a number of different ways. Currently these
comprise WAIS, Gopher and WHOIS.  For details on how to use
the IIS, please refer to our information leaflet "Interac-
tive Information Server" or see the first edition of the NCC
Quarterly Reports.

General Service Usage Statistics

Statistics for the use of the various NCC information ser-
vices were collected for the fourth quarter of 1992 The
table below shows the total number of connections made for
each service (Whois, IIS, Wais, Ftp and Gopher) contacted
either directly from a user client or from the NCC Interac-
tive Information Service.  The breakdown is given as total
number of connections per month:


    Service    Jul    Aug    Sep     Oct    Nov     Dec

    Whois     7909   7845   8044   12373   9769   19255
    IIS        669    591    628    1027   1018    1148
    Wais      1040    682    816    2552   2460    2240
    FTP        849    645    625    1173   1344    1757
    Gopher     371    337    340    1115   1318    1156



For technical reasons, GOPHER logging does not appear in
this overview, since the logging is done in very different
manner than all other services.

The number of connections to the various servers at the NCC
broken down by the source of the request is shown in the
table below.
                           - 17 -


        Source    Whois    IIS   Wais    Ftp   Total

        IIS        3709      0   3296      0    7005
        IXI           9    569      0      0     578
        LOCAL       727     78     53    177    1035
        NCC-X25      11     41      0      0      52
        PSPDN         1      1      0      0       2
        UNKNOWN     521    337     94    228    1180
        at          263     65     62     38     428
        au           15      6     24      6      51
        be          207     18      0     43     268
        br            1      2      0      7      10
        ca           50     36      9     45     140
        ch          674     45     15    216     950
        cl            6      0      1      0       7
        com          56     32    444    380     912
        cs           81     54      0     20     155
        de          761     65      7    257    1090
        dk           89      4     10     21     124
        edu        5529    162    501    432    6624
        ee            0      3      0      0       3
        es           32      4      1     12      49
        fi          142     11     14    111     278
        fr          853    104     15     86    1058
        gov          31      6     16     14      67
        gr           66      3      0     55     124
        hk            0      0      0      1       1
        hu          127     33      0     13     173
        ie          193     33      0     26     252
        il            8     13      0     10      31
        in            0      2      0      1       3
        is           40      0      6      3      49
        it          347     38      1    107     493
        jp            8      1     10      1      20
        kr            1      4      0      0       5
        lu           14     27      0      5      46
        mil          20     41      6     23      90
        mx            0      0      0      1       1
        net        1299     25     32    172    1528
        nl         1463    138     28    254    1883
        no         1943      4      0      8    1955
        nz            1      0      0      0       1
        org        2182      8      5     16    2211
        pl           55     17      0     36     108
        pt          207     10     11     25     253
        se          760     29      3     22     814
        sg            9      0      2      0      11
        su            0      3      0      0       3
        tw            4      4      0      5      13
        uk          444     83    124     43     694
        us         8659      1      2      1    8663
        yu           10     15      0      8      33
        za            0      0      0      1       1
        Total     31628   2175   4792   2930   41525
                           - 18 -


In total there were 2175 connections to the Interactive
Information Server, which is queried, on average, 35 times
per working day.

The provisional access from the IXI network has been used
569 times during the reporting period, slightly less than 10
times per working day on average.  This service will have to
be discontinued once the IXI connection at NIKHEF which it
uses is disconnected unless alternative access can be found.


3.5.  RIPE NCC Information Leaflets

Information leaflets describing the RIPE Network Management
Database and the Interactive Information Server were printed
last quarter.  Copies of these leaflets are still available.
Postscript versions of the leaflets can be obtained from the
RIPE document store (documents ripe-77 and ripe-78).  Alter-
natively we are more than happy to supply hard copies of the
leaflets.


3.6.  Presentations

Once again the NCC would like to stress that it is considers
it a priority to clarify both the existence and the role of
the NCC in relation to the multitude of networking organisa-
tions.  Clearly the larger the audience, the easier this
task is.  To this end the NCC will give presentations about
its activities wherever appropriate and possible.  Therefore
we encourage all those organisations wishing to convey the
work of the RIPE NCC to others to contact the NCC with a
request for a presentation.

Presentations about RIPE and the RIPE NCC have been given at
a meeting of the German Internet Formum DIGI in Munich, Ger-
many in November.

ACONET is has contacted the NCC with a request for a presen-
tation, which is to be given at The 4th Network Seminar and
Intensive Course for Scientists and Network Managers from
Central Europe by Marten Terpstra on February 22nd/23rd.


3.7.  RIPE  Support  Activities

RIPE meetings

Currently RIPE meetings take place three times a year.  From
its initiation on April 1st 1992, the RIPE NCC was chartered
to provide support to all RIPE meetings.

The meetings are open to all Internet service providers, and
enable both formal and informal information gathering, the
                           - 19 -


exchange of ideas and debate.  In addition it is at RIPE
meetings where the members of the 9 RIPE working groups can
meet face to face to discuss and progress their work.

The NCC welcomes suggestions for support from participants
for future RIPE meetings

RIPE meetings support

A detailed checklist describing the preparation necessary to
host a RIPE meeting has been drawn up.  In this way it is
hoped that it will give potential hosting organisations as
well as the RIPE NCC a clear idea of what is involved in
hosting a RIPE meeting away from home.  It should be men-
tioned here that the number of participants to successive
RIPE meetings continues to increase significantly at each
meeting, enhancing the size of the venue and level of sup-
port required.

In addition to the checklist, RIPE meeting site visits have
been initiated for all future RIPE meetings scheduled out-
side Amsterdam. This gives the NCC an opportunity to meet
the local organisers, see the proposed venue and generally
walk through the checklist.  A site visit was carried out in
December to the meet the organisers of the Prague RIPE meet-
ing at the Czech Technical University.

New Working Group

At the 12th RIPE meeting held in Paris, a new working group,
local-ir (local internet registries) was established.  The
aim of this new group is to promote discussion to achieve
greater coordination and cohesion between local registries
on issues relating to the allocation of IP numbers.  The
current chairman of the group is Daniel Karrenberg


3.8.  Referrals and End-User Enquiries

Again the number of referral requests and end-user enquiries
has not been significant during the reporting period. Most
queries have been related to either requests for IP numbers
or dealt with by the mailing list for IP Providers. See the
previous quarterly report for details of this list.


3.9.  General Set Up

The general server and each of the personal workstations
used by the NCC staff have benefited from addition of 16MB
of memory.

The NCC library has expanded thanks to the kind donation by
NLnet (Dutch part of EUnet) of recently published books by
                           - 20 -


O`Reilly Associates, Inc.

We also would like to thank NetCS of Berlin for their kind
donation of FAX software for the NCC Sun workstations.


4.  Acknowledgements

The RIPE NCC wishes to thank the RARE Secretariat for their
excellent support throughout this quarter.

We wish also to thank the local registries for their excel-
lent work, especially with regard to the allocation of IP
numbers
                           - 21 -


Appendix A

Meetings Attended

The following meetings were attended by staff during the
second quarter of the RIPE NCC operations.




    Date        Name & Location        Attendee
    Nov 10-12   DIGI Munich             Marten Terpstra
                                       Daniel Karrenberg

    Nov 16-20   IETF Washington, USA   Marten Terpstra
                                       Daniel Karrenberg

    Dec 17      Czech Technical Univ   Anne Lord
                Prague, CSFR
                           - 22 -


Appendix B

Class B Network Number Allocations to Date

The table below summarises all assignments of class B net-
work numbers made through the RIPE NCC to date.  The "Via"
column indicates through which registry the NCC received the
request and solicited the necessary justification.


             Network Number          Via

             160.44-160.52         DE-NIC
             160.53                SWITCH
             160.54-160.58         DE-NIC
             160.59                SWITCH
             160.60                DE-NIC
             160.61-160.62         CH NIC
             160.63                SWITCH
             163.156-163.157      RIPE NCC
             163.158               CH NIC
             163.159-163.160      RIPE NCC
             163.161               SWITCH
             163.162                GARR
             163.163-163.165      RIPE NCC
             163.166                ICNET
             163.167                JANET
             163.168-163.175      RIPE NCC
             164.1                RIPE NCC
             164.2                RIPE NCC
             164.3                EUnet/AT
             164.4                 SE NIC
             164.5                RIPE NCC
             164.6                  PIPEX
             164.7                RIPE NCC
             164.8                  ARNES
             164.9                 SE NIC
             164.10                SE NIC
             164.11                 JANET
             164.12               RIPE NCC
             164.13            Telecom Finland
             164.14               RIPE NCC
             164.15               RIPE NCC
             164.16-164.34         DE-NIC
             164.35               RIPE NCC
             164.36               RIPE NCC
             164.37-164.40          free
                           - 23 -


Appendix C

Class C Block Allocations to Date

The table below summarises the delegation status of the
class C network number blocks allocated through the NCC and
the number of networks allocated from these blocks.  The
"p/n" column indicates whether the block in question is
delegated to the local registry of a service provider or is
used to allocate numbers to organisations without a service
provider.

It should be noted that blocks are reserved based on usage
estimates given by the local registries for a period of
about 24 months.  Should the assignment rate differ from the
estimated one, reserved blocks can and will be used for
other purposes if necessary.



Block         p   networks   Country   Registry
              /   assigned
              n

192.162               26         NCC   Miscellaneous TN,RO,PT
192.164       p      238          AT   EUnet/AT
192.165              192          SE   NORDUnet
192.166              176          DE   DE-NIC
192.167              154          IT   GARR
192.168       p        0          EU   EUnet/NOC

193.0               free        none   NCC
193.1         p        7          IE   HEANET
193.2         p       13          YU   ARNES
193.3                 84          DK   EUnet/DK
193.4                 17          IS   Iceland everything
193.5         p       42          CH   SWITCH
193.6         p      149          HU   Sztaki
193.7         p        0          DE   chambers of commerce DE-NIC
193.8         n       20          CH   non-provider CH-NIC
193.9         n      160          EU   NCC non-provider European
193.10        p       17          SE   SUNET
193.11        p    resvd          SE   SUNET
193.12        p       81          SE   SWIPNET
193.13-15     p    resvd          SE   SWIPNET
193.16        n      150          DE   non-provider DE-NIC
193.17        n       90          DE   non-provider DE-NIC
193.18        n      254          DE   non-provider DE-NIC
193.19        n        0          DE   non-provider DE-NIC
193.20        n      256          DE   non-provider DE-NIC
193.21        n        0          DE   non-provider DE-NIC
193.22        n      165          DE   non-provider DE-NIC
193.23        n      120          DE   non-provider DE-NIC
193.24-31     n    resvd          DE   non-provider DE-NIC
                           - 24 -


193.32        p      214          UK   non-provider UK-NIC
193.33-34     n    resvd          UK   Sainsbury's
193.35-39     n      210          UK   non-provider UK NIC
193.40        n        3          EE   NCC non-provider EE
193.41        n    resvd          EE   non provider EE
193.42        n       86          IT   non provider IT NIC
193.43        n    resvd          IT   non provider IT NIC
193.44        p       21          SE   TIPNET
193.45-47     p    resvd          SE   TIPNET
193.48        p      143          FR   RENATER
193.49        p       79          FR   RENATER
193.50        p      120          FR   RENATER
193.51-52     p    resvd          FR   RENATER
193.53        n       55          BE   NCC non-provider
                                       block allocated by clerical error
193.54-55           free        none   NCC
193.56        n        1          FR   non-provider FR NIC
193.57        n    resvd          FR   non-provider FR NIC
193.58        n        5          BE   NCC non-provider
193.59        p       17          PL   academic
193.60        p      137          UK   JANET
193.61        p       13          UK   JANET
193.62        p        0          UK   JANET
193.63        p       18          UK   JANET

193.64        p       23          FI   EUnet/FI
193.65-67     p    resvd          FI   EUnet/FI
193.68        p        0          BG   EUnet/BG
193.69        p    resvd          IS   EUnet/IS
193.70        p    resvd          IT   EUnet/IT
193.71        p        0          NO   EUnet/NO
193.72        p       18          CH   EUnet/CH
193.73        p    resvd          CH   EUnet/CH
193.74        p        5          BE   EUnet/BE
193.75        p    resvd          BE   EUnet/BE
193.76-77     p    resvd          HR   EUnet/HR
193.78        p       30          NL   EUnet/NL
193.79        p    resvd          NL   EUnet/NL
193.80        p       21          AT   EUnet/AT
193.81-83     p    resvd          AT   EUnet/AT
193.84        p       86          CS   EUnet/CS
193.85-86     p    resvd          CS   EUnet/CS
193.87        p       24          CS   EUnet/CS for SANET
193.88        p       28          DK   EUnet/DK
193.89-91     p    resvd          DK   EUnet/DK
193.92        p       11          GR   EUnet/GR
193.93        p    resvd          GR   EUnet/GR
193.94        p        5          TN   NCC EUnet/TN
193.95        p    resvd          TN   EUnet/TN
193.96        p      124          DE   EUnet/DE
193.97        p      127          DE   EUnet/DE
193.98        p        0          DE   EUnet/DE
193.99-103    p    resvd          DE   EUnet/DE
193.104       p       11          FR   EUnet/FR
                           - 25 -


193.105-111   p    resvd          FR   EUnet/FR
193.112       p       28          UK   EUnet/UK
193.113       p       67          UK   EUnet/UK (special)
193.114-119   p    resvd          UK   EUnet/UK
193.120       p       17          IE   EUnet/IE
193.121-123   p    resvd          IE   EUnet/IE
193.124       p       42          RU   EUnet/RU + xSU
193.125       p    resvd          RU   EUnet/RU + xSU
193.126       p       32          PT   EUnet/PT
193.127       p        0          ES   EUnet/ES

193.128       p       69          UK   PIPEX
193.129-135   p    resvd          UK   PIPEX
193.136       p       35          PT   RCCN
193.137       p    resvd          PT   RCCN
193.138                5          SI   NCC general
193.139       p      254          FR   Individual Block allocation
193.140               14          TR   NCC general
193.141       p        0          DE   XLINK + reserved
193.142       n       64          FI   NCC non-provider
193.143       n        0          FI   NCC non-provider
193.144       p       10          ES   RedIRIS
193.145-147   p    resvd          ES   RedIRIS
193.148       n       11          ES   non-provider ES NIC
193.149-155   n    resvd          ES   non-provider ES NIC
193.156       p       43          NO   UNINETT
193.157-159   p    resvd          NO   UNINETT
193.160       n       68          NO   non-provider NO NIC
193.161       n    resvd          NO   non-provider NO NIC
193.162       n       21          DK   non-provider DK NIC
193.163       n    resvd          DK   non-provider DK NIC
193.164       n        3          PL   NCC non-provider
193.165       n    resvd          PL   NCC non-provider
193.166       p        6          FI   FUNET
193.167       p    resvd          FI   FUNET
193.168       n       41          LU   NCC non provider
193.169       p        0          UK   AT&T Istel
193.170       p       26          AT   NCC ACONET
193.171       p    resvd          AT   NCC ACONET
193.172       p        4          EU   NCC EMPB
193.173       p    resvd          EU   NCC EMPB
193.174       p        0          DE   DFN
193.175       p    resvd          DE   DFN
193.176       n       17          NL   non provider NL NIC
193.177       n    resvd          NL   non provider NL NIC
193.178       n       30          IE   NCC non provider IE
193.179       n    resvd          IE   NCC non provider IE
193.180       n      113          SE   non provider SE NIC
193.181-183   n    resvd          SE   non provider SE NIC
193.184       p        0          FI   Helsinki Telephone Company
193.185       p    resvd          FI   Helsinki Telephone Company
193.186       n       30          AT   non provider AT NIC
193.187       n    resvd          AT   non provider AT NIC
193.188       n        3        some   NCC Middle East
                           - 26 -


193.189       n       64          NG   NCC Nigeria
193.190       p        0          BE   Belgian National Research Net
193.191       p    resvd          BE   Belgian National Research Net
193.192-243         free        none   NCC
193.244       p      255          BE   Kredietbank
193.245       p      255          BE   Kredietbank
193.246-247   p    resvd          BE   Kredietbank
193.248-254   p     1530          FR   France Telecom Internal
193.255             free        none   NCC
                           - 27 -


Appendix D

Domain Table

This appendix gives an overview of all top level domains,
and other categories mentioned in the tables and graphs.


   Domain    Specifying
   IXI       IXI
   IIS       the Interactive Information Server
   LOCAL     the NCC itself using IP
   NCC-X25   the NCC itself using X.25
   PSPDN     the Public Data Network
   UNKNOWN   no mapping between IP address
             and domain name could be found
   com       commercial organisations (mainly in the US)
   edu       educational organisations (mainly in the US)
   gov       US government organisations
   mil       US military organisations
   net       network providers and related organisations
   org       organisations (mainly in the US)
   al        Albania
   at        Austria
   au        Australia
   be        Belgium
   br        Brazil
   bg        Bulgaria
   by        Byelorus
   ca        Canada
   ch        Switzerland
   cl        Chile
   cs        Czechoslovakia
   de        Germany
   dk        Denmark
   dz        Algeria
   ee        Estonia
   es        Spain
   fi        Finland
   fr        France
   gb        Great-Britain
   gr        Greece
   hk        Hong Kong
   hr        Croatia
   hu        Hungary
   ie        Ireland
   in        India
   is        Iceland
   it        Italy
   il        Israel
   jp        Japan
   kr        Korea
   lt        Lithuania
   lu        Luxembourg
                           - 28 -


   lv        Latvia
   mx        Mexico
   nl        Netherlands
   no        Norway
   nz        New Zealand
   pl        Poland
   pt        Portugal
   ro        Romania
   se        Sweden
   sg        Singapore
   si        Slovenia
   su        USSR
   tn        Tunesia
   tw        Taiwan
   ua        Ukraine
   uk        United Kingdom
   us        United States
   va        Vatican City State
   yu        Yugoslavia
   za        South Africa
                           - 29 -


Appendix F

Working Group Mailing Lists

Coordinating and support for the activities of the Working
Groups is a key focus for the RIPE NCC.  During the first
quarter, the NCC has created mailing lists for those working
groups that have requested this facility.

Relationship between Academic & Research Networks & Commer-
cial Networks.

Chair: Glenn Kowack. E-mail: glenn@eu.net.

Working Group E-mail: raec-wg@ripe.net.



Network Information Discovery and User Support.

Chair: Nandor Horvath. E-mail: horvath@sztaki.hu

Working Group E-mail: nidus-wg@ripe.net



DNS Issues

Chair: Francis Dupont. E-mail: francis.dupont@inria.fr

Working Group E-mail: dns-wg@ripe.net



Routing Issues

Chair: Jean-Michel Jouanigot. E-mail: jimi@dxcoms.cern.ch

Working Group E-mail: routing-wg@ripe.net



Network Monitoring and Statistics Gathering

Chair: Bernhard Stockman. E-mail: boss@sunet.se



Network Maps

Chair: Daniele Bovio. E-mail: hi@frors12.bitnet

Working Group E-mail: maps-wg@ripe.net
                           - 30 -


European Connectivity

Chair: Milan Sterba. E-mail: milan.sterba@inria.fr



RIPE Database

Chair: Wilfried Woeber. E-mail: woeber@access.can.ac.at

Working Group E-mail: db-wg@ripe.net



Local Internet Registries

Chair: Daniel Karrenberg. E-mail: dfk@ripe.net

Working Group E-mail: local-ir@ripe.net




To subscribe to any working group send a message to:

[listname]-request@ripe.net

where [listname] is replaced by the name of one of the work-
ing groups specified above.
