How a Role Point of Contact Can Help You Better Manage Your ARIN Resources [Archived]

By Doreen Marraffa

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There are two types of Point of Contact (POC) records that can be added to an Organization Identifier (Org ID) or Internet number resources: Personal (individual) and Role (group). These POCs identify the person or people within your organization that are responsible for the day-to-day management of your Internet number resources, and include one or more functions such as Admin, Tech, Abuse, or NOC POC. These functions identify the actions or functions they can perform with regard to the Org ID and/or Internet number resources. In this post I will demystify the two types of POCs, and explain why the Role POC is the better option.

What is a Personal POC?

The first type of POC is a Personal POC which represents an individual. A Personal POC enables an individual to have their name and contact information listed in ARIN’s Whois. An individual’s area of responsibility is defined by how their POC is connected to an Org ID or their resources. In addition, a Personal POC has a one-to-one relationship to an ARIN Online account, so only the individual whose email address is listed will be able to link the POC to their ARIN Online account. This means there is a single point of management for an organization’s Org ID and Internet number resources.

What’s the problem with only having a Personal POC?

Having a Personal POC as the only contact on the Org ID or Internet number resources could be slightly problematic should the individual leave the company. Since a POC is the only one who has the authority to manage the Org ID and resources on behalf of an organization, having Personal POCs could leave the Org ID and resources unmanageable for a period of time. In this type of scenario, the new individual would need to do a number of things to gain access to the Org ID and resources. They would need to create an ARIN Online account, create a new POC (Personal or Role) that will be used to replace the “old” POC, then submit an Organization Recovery request.

What is a Role POC?

The second type of POC is a Role POC which could represent a group of people that are associated with a group email such as, noc@, abuse@, etc. A Role POCs area of responsibility is defined by how the POC is connected to an Org ID or their resources. A Role POC enables the organization to have a group email listed in ARIN’s Whois instead of an individual’s email address. In addition, a Role POC has a many to one relationship to an ARIN Online account. This means that multiple ARIN Online accounts can be linked to the same Role POC. This provides the ability to have multiple points of management for an organization’s Org ID and Internet number resources.

What are the benefits to having a Role POC?

Having a Role POC is preferred for many different reasons and our Registration Services team is often asked why using a Role POC can be beneficial for an organization. Some scenarios include:

Organizations security protocols outline individual contact information is not to be publicly listed on third party sites.
Organizations require that there is never a single point of “failure” and because a group email address is monitored by more than one individual, a Role POC is ideal for this.
Attrition is a huge factor in how a Role POC can benefit an organization.

While it may be clear to understand how a Role POC is helpful with reference to security protocols and single point of failure, it may be less clear how it can help in reference to attrition. Remembering that a Role POC has a many-to-one relationship to an ARIN Online account, a scenario could play out as follows:

Pete, Sam, Mike and Barb all work in the Information Technology department for XYZ Cogs & Things and all receive email at the same group email address ([email protected])
Pete, Sam, Mike and Barb all have their own ARIN Online accounts which have all linked to the same Role POC listed as the Admin, Tech and Abuse.
Mike has unexpectedly left the company. Pete can quickly remove Mike’s access by simply unlinking Mike’s ARIN Online account from the Role POC. Mike will no longer be able to access or manage anything for the organization.
A new employee (John) has been hired and needs to be able to help with the management of the Org ID and Internet number resources. The new employee will simply create his own ARIN Online account and request to link to the Role POC. As long as John is able to receive email sent to the Role email address, then he will be able to complete the link and have the access required to help manage the Org ID and Internet number resources.

Basically, in the event an employee leaves the organization, anyone else that is also linked to the same Role POC can remove the departing employees access. In addition, any new employee that will be helping to manage the Org ID and/or resources will not need to do anything more than create his or her own ARIN Online account and simply link to the existing Role POC.

If you would like to discuss how a Role POC can better help you manager your Org ID and Internet number resources, please contact a member of our Registration Services team at 703.227.0660 or submit an Ask ARIN ticket from within your ARIN Online account.