ARIN Bits: March 2024

By Christina Paladeau – Social Media and Content Specialist

While spring is just beginning to bloom around us, ARIN has been buzzing with the season’s energy since the start of the year. The first quarter of 2024 has offered a bouquet of updates, deployments, travel, and more as we steadfastly pursue our mission to enhance services and empower our community. In this edition of Bits we share important updates from this past quarter and details about upcoming events, including: ARIN 53 and its Fellowship Program; changes in membership and governance participation opportunities; email template retirement; pending enhancements to our RPKI services; upcoming industry gatherings; and much more. Read on to learn about all the fresh things sprouting up at ARIN and in our community.

Missed any previous editions? Find all past ARIN Bits posted on the blog.

In This Edition

• Join Us at ARIN 53 in Barbados or Online
• Meet the ARIN 53 Fellows
• Membership Changes and the Importance of Voting
• Prepare for Email Template Retirement
• Read Results of the BGP/Intelligence Consultation
• Catch ARIN on the Road in Reno and Kansas City
• Apply for a 2024 ARIN Community Grant (Soon)
• Find ARIN at Upcoming Industry Meetings and Community Events
• A Tip From Our Registration Services Department
• Current Draft Policies and Proposals
• Recent Posts on the ARIN Blog

Join Us at ARIN 53 in Barbados or Online

Our next Public Policy and Members Meeting is less than a month away, and we hope to see you there! ARIN 53 will take place 14-17 April at the Hilton Barbados Resort in Bridgetown, Barbados, for in-person attendees and online for virtual participants joining us via the Zoom webinar platform. Click here to register. Immediately following ARIN 53, CaribNOG’s 27th Regional Gathering will take place 17-19 April in the same location.

ARIN 53 will be a great opportunity to:

• Discuss draft and recommended Internet number resource policies.
• Participate in technical discussions.
• Hear reports from our Board and Advisory Council.
• Get updates from ARIN staff on topics including Internet governance, routing security, and departmental happenings.
• Network with colleagues.

Plus, Brent Mc Intosh, Chief Technology Officer of MCNET-SOLUTIONS, will present the keynote address on building and sustaining Caribbean digital infrastructure with Internet exchange points (IXPs) and IPv6 technologies. Don’t miss his discussion of how the Caribbean — supported by ARIN’s trusted services — can boost its digital economy through technological innovations such as next-generation Internet protocol connectivity and critical infrastructure support.

Those joining us in Barbados are invited to catch up with friends and colleagues and connect with other meeting-goers at our Welcome Reception on Sunday evening. Then, on Monday evening, mingle on a beautiful Caribbean beach at the ARIN 53 social event. During the meeting, visit the onsite ARIN Customer Support Desk, hosted by experienced resource analysts from our Registration Services Department, to get any questions you might have answered.

For ARIN 53 and CaribNOG 27 in-person attendees, if you’re interested in learning more about ARIN’s Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) offerings and how they can help secure your resources, we encourage you to attend the RPKI Deployathon on Wednesday, 17 April. ARIN experts will help guide your first Route Origin Authorization (ROA) and answer any questions you may have about RPKI. Then stick around to participate in the second annual ARIN Caribbean Roundtable in the afternoon.

Virtual attendees are encouraged to reach out to our Virtual Help Desk for support. ARIN staff will be just a click away during the first 90 minutes of each day and our scheduled lunch breaks to help you get answers, troubleshoot any technical issues you experience, and ensure you have all the links and information you need for a successful meeting.

For hotel details, travel information, and more, visit the ARIN 53 website.

Prepare to Participate

No matter how you plan to attend the meeting, save the date for the ARIN 53 Meeting Orientation on Tuesday, 9 April, from 2 to 3 PM ET. You’ll have the option of signing up for this virtual session during your registration. Whether it’s your first ARIN meeting or you’re a regular, we invite you to get a sneak peek at the policies up for discussion, learn more about what to expect during ARIN 53, and find out how to make the most of your meeting experience.

Meet the ARIN 53 Fellows

With ARIN 53 around the corner, that also means it’s time to introduce our next cohort of ARIN Fellows! We’re excited to welcome a new group of community members into this spring’s program. Fifteen Fellows will participate in three virtual sessions, held via Zoom in the weeks leading up to the meeting, before attending ARIN 53 either in person or virtually. The virtual sessions will provide Fellows the opportunity to get immersed into the work of ARIN through presentations, discussions, and Q&As with ARIN leadership so they can feel ready to actively participate in the upcoming meeting. This spring’s Fellows will also have the opportunity to attend CaribNOG 27 in the days following ARIN 53.

Read the blog post about this spring’s Fellowship Program to get to know the selected Fellows. 

Membership Changes and the Importance of Voting

ARIN recently completed the fee harmonization process begun in 2022 by transitioning Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) to the Registration Services Plan Fee Schedule. As this change confers Service Member status to ASN-only customers who have an ARIN agreement, now all ARIN customer organizations with Internet number resources under an ARIN agreement are members and may choose to participate in ARIN governance by requesting General Membership.

To help ARIN fulfill its mission, we rely on our General Members to participate in ARIN Elections for the ARIN Board of Trustees and Advisory Council and the Number Resource Organization Number Council (NRO NC). This involvement is both a chance to empower representation that aligns with your interests and to play an essential role in supporting the Internet number registry system and the Internet as a whole.

General members must participate in ARIN Elections to maintain their status (organizations that have not cast a ballot in any of the previous three ARIN Elections will be reclassified as Service Members and may reapply for General Member status at any time)*. To be eligible to vote, General Member organizations must have a valid designated Voting Contact and be in Good Standing (no outstanding/overdue fees) 45 days prior to the start of the election.

Learn more about the importance of participating in ARIN governance and how to request General Membership in this blog post: ARIN Membership Explained: What It Means and Why It Matters.

*Organizations may submit a blank ballot. Your participation in the election will still be recorded, and the organization will maintain General Member status.

Prepare for Email Template Retirement

Effective 3 June 2024, ARIN will be retiring SWIP email templates for reporting reallocations and reassignments as described in the Community Consultation conducted in November 2023. We will be working directly with the less than 75 customers impacted by the change to guide them through this transition to our Registration RESTful Service, Reg-RWS, and we have completed the following major improvements to ease the impact prior to retiring the template processor:

• Published an open-source template processor through GitHub on 31 October 2023 that can convert email templates to REST calls that can be received by Reg-RWS.
• Deployed updates to ARIN Online on 7 August 2023 to provide feature parity with the existing template processor for reassignments.

If you’re interested in learning how your organization can use Reg-RWS to automate tasks such as creating a recipient customer, submitting reassignment or reallocation information, modifying nets, and more, we invite you to view our free, on-demand webinar “Reg-RWS Basics: Automate Management of ARIN Records with API.”

Read Results of the BGP/Intelligence Consultation

From 30 January to 8 March, ARIN held a consultation seeking feedback from the community regarding the level of information presented to the user when they are using ARIN’s Hosted RPKI product. ARIN is planning to add functionality to a new RPKI dashboard that will allow a user to view the current RPKI validity state and the resulting impact to routing for the resources covered by the Route Origin Authorizations (ROA). This will allow users to make more informed decisions about creating ROAs before confirming the changes within ARIN Online (ARIN API users will still need to use third-party tools to collect the same information).

For details on the consultation (2024.1) and the new RPKI dashboard features for which ARIN plans to proceed with development work, visit arin.net/announcements/20240311/.

Catch ARIN on the Road in Reno and Kansas City

We’re heading to the Biggest Little City in the World and the City of Fountains for ARIN on the Road’s next two stops of 2024! If you’re in the Reno, Nevada, area on 30 April or the Kansas City area on 2 May and want to experience our amazing community in person, learn more about ARIN, and explore what we can offer your organization, then don’t miss your chance when this special event comes to town. ARIN staff will be on site to answer questions about IPv6 deployment and IPv4 status, discuss RPKI and routing security, provide an intro to the Policy Development Process, and more. Need more reasons to attend? We shared five on the blog.

Learn more and register today to reserve your (free) seat: ARIN on the Road.

Apply for a 2024 ARIN Community Grant (Soon)

Next month we will issue the call for applications for the 2024 ARIN Community Grant Program, which provides financial support for operational and research projects that improve the overall Internet industry and Internet user environment. The program has awarded $230,975 since its start in 2019, supporting 21 projects for Internet technical improvements, registry processes and technology, informational outreach, and research. We look forward to supporting more projects that benefit the ARIN community this year and encourage you to apply if you think your project seems like a good fit!

If you are thinking about applying, take a look at past grant recipients to get a sense of the types of projects we typically fund and carefully read through all the selection criteria to ensure your project can meet them. Plus, you can tune in to ARIN 53 on 16 April to watch presentations from the three 2023 Grant Program recipients.

Learn more and stay tuned for 2024 application information on the Grant Program page of our website.

Find ARIN at Upcoming Industry Meetings and Community Events

If you’re not able to make it to ARIN 53 in Barbados or ARIN on the Road in Reno or Kansas City this spring, you’ll have other opportunities to connect with us in person. In addition to the meetings and workshops we host, we attend many community events where you can join us to hear updates and presentations, ask us questions, get help with your ARIN account and resources, and more. Here’s where you can find us in the next few months:

• CEN Connect | 8-9 May | Hartford, Connecticut
• Midwest Broadband Operators Conference | 14 May | Indianapolis, Indiana
• NYSLGITDA Spring Conference | 14-17 May | Saratoga, New York
• NANOG 91 | 10-12 June | Kansas City, Missouri
• Midwest Peering Summit | 13-14 June | Kansas City, Missouri

For a full list of the events ARIN will be participating in, visit our Community Event Calendar online.

A Tip From Our Registration Services Department

Have you received an email about validating your Point of Contact and are unsure how this process helps you or your organization? Read on to learn more about this important facet of your ARIN Online account.

Validating your Point of Contact information ensures that the data is correct and up to date, which serves several important purposes, including:

• Ensuring Accuracy of Whois Data: The Whois database contains crucial information about the holders of Internet resources.
• Preventing Resource Hijacking: By regularly validating your Point of Contact information, you reduce the risk of unauthorized changes to your organization’s Internet number resources. This helps safeguard against potential resource hijacking attempts, where malicious actors attempt to take control of your resources without your consent.
• Maintaining Control: Keeping your Point of Contact records current helps ensure that your organization maintains control over its Internet number resources and associated records. Outdated or incorrect information could lead to complications in managing these resources effectively.
• Complying with Policy: ARIN’s policy mandates annual validation of Point of Contact information for directly issued resources. Adhering to this requirement ensures that your organization remains compliant with ARIN’s policies and guidelines, which are designed to promote fair and efficient allocation of Internet resources.

By responding to the validation emails and confirming the accuracy of your Point of Contact information, you contribute to the overall integrity and security of the Internet’s addressing system while protecting your organization’s interests.

More information on Points of Contact and Org IDs can be found here: arin.net/resources/guide/account/records/.

Current Draft Policies and Proposals

Find the status of current policy discussions on our website and subscribe to the ARIN-PPML (Public Policy Mailing List) to voice your opinions. Remember, membership is not required to participate!

Recent Posts on the ARIN Blog

• Improving Regional Internet Registry Alignment in the RPKI Space
• Meet the ARIN 53 Fellows
• ARIN Membership Explained: What It Means and Why It Matters
• The Business Case for IPv6-Only Enterprise
• Navigating the Internet Policy Landscape: A Transformative Journey with ARIN
• Beyond Boundaries: A Caribbean IT Manager’s Sojourn into Internet Governance
• Top 10 Most Popular Blog Posts of 2023

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