RIPE NCC Activity Plan 2004

   RIPE NCC

   Date: 5 November 2003
   Document ID: ripe-291
   Updates: ripe-255
     ___________________________________________________________________

Table of Contents

    1. Executive Summary
    2. Focus Points 2004
    3. Membership Services
    4. RIPE NCC Co-ordination Activities
    5. Information services
    6. New Activities
    7. Vision and strategy
     ___________________________________________________________________

1. Executive Summary

   Following the analysis of RIPE NCC membership growth so far in
   2003, a net growth of 6% is projected for the year 2003, as
   compared with a net growth rate of 5% in 2002.

   Conservative growth estimates assume that this growth could decline
   by 2% over 2004, with a total net increase in membership of 4%.

   The total expenses budget for the planned activities in 2004 is
   10,263 kEUR. This is an increase of 4.6% from the 2003 budget. This
   increase will cover the planned activities for improving the RIPE
   NCC's contact with its membership.

   For 2004, it is estimated that the amount of number resource
   requests received by the RIPE NCC will increase by around 10% while
   RIPE NCC Hostmaster staff will remain at the 2003 level. The
   initial response time is expected to remain stable at around one
   working day, consistent with the level achieved in 2003. Focus in
   2004 will move to decreasing the overall time to completion of
   number resource requests.

   Total revenues of 10.8 MEUR will cover all expected expenses and
   are expected to lead to an approximate surplus of 0.5 MEUR to
   further replenish the RIPE NCC reserves against the loss incurred
   in 2002.

2. Focus Points 2004

   In 2004, the RIPE NCC will focus on continuing to improve the
   quality of service it provides to the membership and will develop
   channels to enable quicker, easier and more efficient interaction
   with individual members.
   
   In addition, the RIPE NCC will build on its position as a neutral,
   credible and authoritative source to foster open forum discussions
   and to supply timely and accurate network and Internet-related
   information to the Internet community.

Quality of service
   
   Focusing on the quality of its core services, the RIPE NCC will
   improve the process of providing Internet resource distribution to
   members. This will include streamlining the registration of these
   resources and simplifying the procedures and the documentation.

   The RIPE NCC will build on the success of the initiatives in 2003
   to reduce response times and to offer more services through a
   customised web interface. A primary goal for 2004 will be to reduce
   the time to completion for Internet resource requests and to
   increase member access to RIPE NCC services.
    
Membership support
     
   As a result of the feedback received from the 2002 RIPE NCC
   Membership and Stakeholders Survey, the RIPE NCC will continue to
   develop mechanisms providing members with secure, efficient, and
   simplified access to the RIPE NCC's core services. A service will
   be developed that enables members to resolve queries and problems
   through direct telephone contact with the RIPE NCC staff.

   There will also be efforts to provide assistance to members in
   specific areas of the service region and to offer them advice on
   issues of relevance at a local level. This will be combined with a
   continued commitment to maintaining the high standard of training
   courses. We plan to develop training formats that take into account
   the diverse geographical, cultural and logistical factors of our
   member base.
   
   The RIPE NCC will focus on communication channels that provide
   relevant information to the appropriate audience as a response to
   one of the primary member suggestions expressed in the membership
   survey. These channels include RIPE NCC web pages, mailing lists
   and printed publications, such as the Member Update, designed to
   update RIPE NCC members on RIPE NCC services and policy development
   issues.
   
Qualitative and accessible information supply

   In 2004, the RIPE NCC will improve the quality, range and
   accessibility of the data it provides. This includes specific focus
   on public registration data, such as the routing registry and IP
   address allocation information stored in the RIPE Database. The
   RIPE NCC will also improve the access to, and quality of, its
   operational statistics.

   The RIPE NCC will continue to increase the quality of the public
   data sets it produces by adapting collection methods and
   cross-checking with other RIRs. Collection and storage methods will
   be reviewed and adapted where necessary. The RIPE NCC will also
   develop a consistent form of presentation with concise information
   about what the data is, why and how it is collected, as well as its
   usefulness and limitations.
   
   The RIPE NCC will discontinue TTM as a closed user group
   service. This service will be incorporated into the RIPE NCC
   publicly available Information Services, as outlined in Section 5
   of this document.  Therefore the activities that used to be covered
   by TTM in Membership Services have moved to Information Services.
   
3) Membership Services
   
Improving member service and increasing contact with members

   The primary membership service activity will continue to be serving
   members' requests for Internet resources in the RIPE NCC service
   region.  The goal for 2004 will be to reduce the overall time it
   takes for members to receive the resources they requested and to
   maintain the current low response times.
    
   For 2004, it is estimated that the number of Internet resource
   requests received by the RIPE NCC will increase by around 10% while
   RIPE NCC Hostmaster staff will remain at the 2003 level. Through
   sustaining the efficient levels of performance achieved in 2003,
   the initial response time is expected to remain stable at around
   one working day, consistent with the level achieved in 2003.
   
   Building on the service improvements made in 2003, the RIPE NCC
   will continue to support, strengthen and facilitate further
   improvements to membership services by focusing on:

     * creating effective communication channels to enable more direct
       contact with members
     
     * introducing easy to use web-interfaces for accessing RIPE NCC
       services, such as the LIR Portal
     
     * renewing resource management software
     
     * simplifying procedures and documentation
   
   In addition, the RIPE NCC will be proactive in advising the RIPE
   community on the operational impact of policy proposals as well as
   co-ordinating the implementation of new policy with RIPE NCC
   members and the RIPE community.
   
Membership training

   The RIPE NCC will continue to spread training courses throughout
   the service region. Apart from the educational benefit of the
   training courses, they also act as a valuable communication channel
   for receiving feedback from RIPE NCC members. To fulfil the
   differing requirements of the membership, the RIPE NCC will
   initiate the development of new training formats in order to reach
   a broader cross-section of the membership. Teacher-based courses
   will remain the main training method in 2004.
   
   As a result of the positive reactions received in 2003, the RIPE
   NCC will continue with the development of the advanced courses on
   Routing Registry and DNSSec. However, the number of these training
   courses will not be increased in 2004.
   
Creating new member feedback channels
   
   Feedback from the membership survey highlighted a consistent need
   for a more direct form of communication and membership service
   flexibility when contacting the RIPE NCC. To address this need, the
   RIPE NCC will develop the Talk NCC project, which aims to provide
   telephone support for both existing and prospective members. This
   will aid in reducing the completion time of requests by improving
   the support given to members.

   In order to strengthen membership interaction, the RIPE NCC will
   develop the role of the Membership Liaison Officer (MLO). The MLO
   is responsible for managing liaison activities and regional support
   to all members throughout the RIPE NCC service region. The primary
   function of these activities is to ensure that RIPE NCC services
   meet member needs by developing communication channels for member
   feedback and increasing the interaction between the RIPE NCC and
   its members.
   
   This will include establishing close contact with the RIPE NCC
   Services Working Group and following a more focused approach to
   industry related meetings and events that are attended. This will
   make it easier to continuously evaluate and address the changing
   needs of RIPE NCC members.
   
   The MLO will also co-ordinate regional support activities that will
   enable the RIPE NCC to establish and maintain direct contact with
   members across its entire service region by:

     * educating and supporting members
     
     * encouraging member input and participation in the activities of
       the RIPE NCC
     
     * monitoring the effect of procedural and policy changes on members
     
4) RIPE NCC Co-ordination Activities
   
RIPE Database
   
   The RIPE Database will continue to be developed to provide a fast,
   reliable service supported by maintenance from the RIPE NCC
   Database Department. To ensure a consistently high level of user
   satisfaction, the RIPE Database service will be enhanced by
   providing better training, documentation and simplified interaction
   with the database.
   
   There will be a comprehensive review of the messages that users see
   at each point where they interact with the Database and all
   documentation associated with the RIPE Database service. One of the
   results of this will be a web interface structured with searches
   and wizards to help users solve their problems.
   
   Regular projects will be continued in 2004 to ensure the quality of
   service offered to users. The primary aim of these projects will be
   to deliver ongoing improvement to the data quality in the database
   and software developments to meet changing user needs. Database
   improvements will include the addition of an organisation object to
   track holders of resources in a more natural way and the
   implementation of cross-registry routing authorisation checks. The
   provision of reverse delegation requests and maintenance will be
   redesigned to ensure simple, correct, reverse DNS. An off-site
   database server will be developed as a back-up system.
   
RIPE Meetings
   
   The RIPE NCC will organise three RIPE Meetings in 2004, providing
   all administrative and technical support. The RIPE Meetings enable
   attendees to participate in Internet policy-making discussions and
   to meet industry players, business partners and organisations from
   the RIPE region and beyond. Additionally, various tutorials of
   interest to network operators and administrators are provided.
   
   RIPE Meetings stimulate the participation of the RIPE community in
   the IP policy-making process and the technical co-ordination of IP
   networking. These meetings are essential to the stable operation of
   the RIPE NCC as guidance and advice from the RIPE Working Groups
   are invaluable to the RIPE NCC in:
 
    * developing IP address policies in the RIPE NCC service region 
     
    * defining its annual activity plan
   
   To increase the awareness and involvement of the RIPE NCC
   membership and the RIPE community in RIPE Meetings there will be an
   increase in the support provided for those that cannot attend. This
   will include enhancements to the webcasting of selected sessions
   that allow those not able to attend to follow the discussions.
     
Reporting on RIPE NCC and RIPE developments
     
   The RIPE NCC will extend its reporting activities in order to
   provide the RIPE NCC membership and other interested parties with
   open, detailed information about the ongoing activities of the RIPE
   NCC and its role in Internet administration. This will be done
   through the distribution of the annual report, including financial
   statements, the Member Update, and email reporting to RIPE NCC
   members and interested parties.
   
   The Member Update publication provides information on the RIPE NCC
   and the development and performance of its services to the
   membership. It also provides updates on IP policy development. This
   project furthers the RIPE NCC's efforts to communicate more
   effectively with its membership and stakeholders, and to increase
   participation in RIPE.
   
   In order to ensure that members and stakeholders are aware of the
   issues and developments to be discussed at RIPE Meetings, the RIPE
   NCC will continue to distribute the Member Update to the membership
   prior to each RIPE Meeting.
   
   A primary goal for 2004 will be to restructure the RIPE NCC's web
   siteto offer simplified navigation, increased focus on the needs of
   members and improved access to documents. The redevelopment of the
   web site will also help to clarify the different roles of RIPE and
   the RIPE NCC.
   
Co-ordinating the Deployment of Internet Security Infrastructure (DISI)
   
   Within DISI, the RIPE NCC supports the RIPE community in the
   deployment of security-relevant technologies in the Internet
   infrastructure.
   
   The main focus at the moment is on DNSSec. Based on the adoption of
   DNSSec standards by the IETF, it is expected that the first
   in-addr.arpa zones under RIPE NCC management can be signed early in
   2004. By mid-2004, this will have become a production service. The
   RIPE NCC will continue to offer courses on the subject and to
   develop them as DNSSec, and its deployment, progresses.
   
   At the same time, there will be continuous monitoring of the
   development of other security-relevant technologies that need to be
   deployed in the Internet infrastructure or need to be centrally
   co-ordinated. The RIPE NCC will keep the community informed about
   these technologies and start a deployment support effort as soon as
   it is necessary and practical. In 2004 there will be particular
   attention given to developments in the area of securing BGP.
     
   The RIPE NCC supports the operation of one of the root DNS servers
   - k.root-servers.net. The RIPE NCC will ensure adequate performance
   and responsiveness of the service as well as its resilience against
   DoS attacks. Based on successful deployment of two anycast clusters
   located at the LINX in London and the AMS-IX in Amsterdam, new
   anycast instances of k.root-servers.net will be deployed. The
   service will be provided using nsd, a high performance
   authoritative DNS name server software that NLnet Labs have
   developed in co-operation with the RIPE NCC.

RIPE NCC External Relations
   
   Following the feedback received from the membership survey, the
   RIPE NCC will continue its external relations activities to ensure
   that the RIPE NCC represents its members in the appropriate
   industry and government forums. The RIPE NCC will participate in
   inter-RIR co-ordination and in the presentation of a global view of
   IP address management and the convergence of RIR services and
   policies.
   
   The goal of the external relations and liaison efforts is to ensure
   that the open structures and processes in which RIPE and the RIPE
   NCC operate will be promoted to new and existing players. This will
   help to represent the RIPE membership and RIPE community to new
   industry players and governments showing an interest in Internet
   administration. A primary objective is to ensure that the RIPE NCC
   continues to play an effective role in the further formalisation of
   Internet administration.
   
   The RIPE NCC's external relations efforts will be supported by the
   advice of an international consultancy with proven experience in
   electronic communications and in developing key contacts within
   Internet industry organisations and governments in the RIPE NCC
   service region.
   
   Underlying all external relations activities will be a continued
   commitment to strengthening the open, bottom-up, self-regulatory
   structure established in RIPE.
   
RIR Co-ordination
   
   In 2004 the RIPE NCC will continue to actively participate in
   inter-RIR co-ordination both on policy and engineering matters.
   
   At the level of global Internet administration, the RIPE NCC will
   liaise, communicate and co-ordinate activities with other RIRs. An
   important activity will be the continuation of the ERX project,
   which involves transferring early registration data to the
   appropriate RIR responsible for the address range. This project
   will provide LIRs with easier management of their resources within
   the appropriate region.
   
   The RIPE NCC will also continue to offer its support to the African
   Internet community in their development of the emerging RIR for
   Africa (AfriNIC).
   
5) Information services 
     
   In 2004 the RIPE NCC will develop simpler and ready-to-use
   information services. The challenge will be to develop information
   services that are simple, meaningful and that also maintain
   scientific credibility. One area that will be developed is the
   provision of simplified measurements for the Internet in general:
   for example, measurement of global or regional routing stability
   across all providers. A Network Operation Centre (NOC) could use
   such measurements to determine quickly whether any instability is
   local to its responsibility or is more widespread.  
  
   Another area that will be developed is to create personalised views
   on the data such as the "myAS" service that provides user
   configurable history data and alarms based on the RIS measurements
   and various registration databases.
   
   The following services will be developed during 2004:
   
Routing Information Service (RIS)
   
   The RIS will continue to provide an integrated view of BGP routing
   information collected at multiple locations worldwide. This service
   is unique in its capability to integrate multiple views and provide
   information about the routing state at specific times in the past.
   During 2004, the RIPE NCC will continue to develop the "myAS"
   interface to the RIS.
   
Active Measurement Service (AMS)
   
   The closed user group for TTM measurement data will be
   discontinued.  The deployed measurement network is a unique
   resource. The RIPE NCC will continue to operate this network at
   those locations that agree to the open publication policy proposed
   in RIPE 271 ("RIPE NCC Hostcount in the 21st Century") as well as
   at additional locations. This network will be used to provide the
   new Active Measurement Service (AMS). 

   In 2004, the highly accurate one-way-delay and loss measurements
   will be publicly available along with the periodic path data. A new
   part of this service will provide data about the service quality of
   DNS servers at high levels in the DNS tree. The AMS network can
   accommodate additional active measurements.
   
Statistics Collection Service (SCS)
   
   The RIPE NCC Hostcount will be thoroughly analysed and revised to
   ensure its continued usefulness as well as keeping intact the
   substantial time series that has been collected. Wherever possible
   other statistics gathered will be incorporated into this service in
   order to improve cross-checks, cross reference and to unify the
   presentation and improve accessibility.
   
Incident Response Service (IRS)
   
   Procedures will be set up to quickly provide RIPE NCC members, the
   Internet community and the general public with authoritative data
   about unusual events on the Internet, such as DDoS on the RIPE NCC.
     
6) New Activities
   
   New activities are either entirely unforeseen at the time of
   writing this activity plan or have started recently and are not at
   the stage where they can be developed as regular services. A new
   activity will only be started after thorough analysis of its need,
   with a clearly communicated project plan, deliverables, budget and
   timeline. A quick, well-focused reaction to the changing
   environment and new requirements of the RIPE NCC Members and other
   stakeholders has always been a strong point of the RIPE NCC.
   
7) Vision and strategy
   
Supporting the RIPE community
   
   The RIPE NCC will continue to strengthen the open, bottom-up,
   consensus driven policy- making process that has been central to
   the RIPE community since its inception. The direction and input of
   the RIPE community and the RIPE NCC membership will continue to be
   followed and translated into public and membership services.
   
   Independence, reinforced by community support, has always been a
   cornerstone of the RIPE NCC operations. The RIPE NCC will continue
   to operate under its principles of openness, transparency,
   neutrality and impartiality.
   
   The activities of the RIPE NCC will be dominated by a focused
   effort to proactively encourage feedback from RIPE NCC members and
   the RIPE community. There will be an increase in the support
   provided for those unable to attend RIPE Meetings.
   
Facilitating Internet co-ordination
   
   The RIPE NCC will focus Internet co-ordination efforts on:

     * establishing regular reports including general statistical and
       measurement information about the Internet
     
     * promoting the RIPE NCC as a credible reference point for reliable,
       scientifically derived, easily accessible and understandable
       information
     
     * developing strong liaison activities with public, policy forming
       bodies
   
   The RIPE NCC will continue efforts to co-ordinate activities and
   policies with other RIRs.
   
Improving Internet stability and security
   
   Over the course of 2004, the RIPE NCC will improve Internet
   stability and security by promoting and co-ordinating the
   deployment of security measures with ISPs such as securing the
   reverse delegation DNS tree employing DNSSec.
   
   The RIPE NCC will build on this previously established knowledge to
   prepare for services that further secure Internet reliability, such
   as authenticating resource holdership, and supporting secure
   Internet routing mechanisms. These services will help counter
   practices such as the hijacking of Internet address space for
   spamming purposes, and the unauthorised injection of bogus routes
   into the Internet routing tables.
   
   Building on its position as a neutral and credible source for
   information about the Internet infrastructure, the RIPE NCC will
   develop its information supply service to become one of the key
   sources for accessible and ready-to-use data on Internet
   measurements and usage.
