Co-lo best practices on IP allocations
Are there any suggestions/ideas on best practices when it comes to co-lo allocation of addresses to its customers? Is there any site that may have some pointers? The dilemma is whether to charge or no to charge separate for the IPs. Should it be a cause built into their overall contract? Any ideas?
On Tue, 18 Mar 2003, Daniel Abbey wrote:
Are there any suggestions/ideas on best practices when it comes to co-lo allocation of addresses to its customers? Is there any site that may have some pointers? The dilemma is whether to charge or no to charge separate for the IPs. Should it be a cause built into their overall contract? Any ideas?
My approach (I don't think there is anything close to a BCP for this): Charge if they'll pay, don't if they demand it for free. It's a great fee to knock off to close the deal. But only give them what they can justify, unless they are potentially a huge revenue customer, to who you would give whatever they want (within reason). $50 per /24 at the high end, $5 per /29 at the low end. Andy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Andy Dills 301-682-9972 Xecunet, LLC www.xecu.net xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
Be careful on charging for it... I know of cases where adult-websites/spammers (who have more money than they know what to do with) will buy 8 class-C's and when one gets blacklisted, they move onto the next... by the time they're on the 8th, the 1st is available again... If you make it a policy to charge for IP, people will not pay as much attention to the "as much as you can justify" comment. If it's free, people respect the conditions. If you can get them to respect the conditions AND pay you for it, that's the best situation... hope this helps, -marc. -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Dills Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 9:20 AM To: Daniel Abbey Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Co-lo best practices on IP allocations On Tue, 18 Mar 2003, Daniel Abbey wrote:
Are there any suggestions/ideas on best practices when it comes to
co-lo
allocation of addresses to its customers? Is there any site that may have some pointers? The dilemma is whether to charge or no to charge separate for the IPs. Should it be a cause built into their overall contract? Any ideas?
My approach (I don't think there is anything close to a BCP for this): Charge if they'll pay, don't if they demand it for free. It's a great fee to knock off to close the deal. But only give them what they can justify, unless they are potentially a huge revenue customer, to who you would give whatever they want (within reason). $50 per /24 at the high end, $5 per /29 at the low end. Andy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Andy Dills 301-682-9972 Xecunet, LLC www.xecu.net xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
Be careful on charging for it...
I know of cases where adult-websites/spammers (who have more money than they know what to do with) will buy 8 class-C's and when one gets blacklisted, they move onto the next... by the time they're on the 8th, the 1st is available again...
If you make it a policy to charge for IP, people will not pay as much attention to the "as much as you can justify" comment. If it's free, people respect the conditions.
If you can get them to respect the conditions AND pay you for it, that's the best situation...
hope this helps, -marc.
A common misconception is that people "buy" addresses. Thankfully, this is not the case, or cash would outweigh need. Groups (including the RIRs) tend to charge fees for administering allocations, but with said fee is no guarantee that the addresses won't be pulled the next day. I only wish the RIRs went through and enforced policy, pulling allocations which have been "sold"/"rented"/"leased" to others or simply being squatted on due to the original holder having disappeared or gone out of business. Maybe require allocated entities to rejustify their existing allocations every 5 years. In your situation, you are bound by the policies of the entity from which you obtain your addresses. This means that regardless of whether you charge a fee, the entity has to justify their need. This would exclude the situation you point out of a company moving back and forth between multiple /24s, since they wouldn't be able to justify the "extra" space with which they move.
On Tue, 18 Mar 2003, Andy Dills wrote:
On Tue, 18 Mar 2003, Daniel Abbey wrote:
Are there any suggestions/ideas on best practices when it comes to co-lo allocation of addresses to its customers? Is there any site that may have some pointers? The dilemma is whether to charge or no to charge separate for the IPs. Should it be a cause built into their overall contract? Any ideas?
[...]
But only give them what they can justify, unless they are potentially a huge revenue customer, to who you would give whatever they want (within reason).
I would be extremely cautious about following that advice. It's pretty simple to get more IP addresses from ARIN if you follow their processes, do your allocations according to their guidelines, and keep good documentation. Those who don't follow the ARIN guidelines tend to run into a lot of trouble when it comes time to get more IP addresses, especially when the customers for whom they ignore the guidelines stand out as their really big allocations. As far as whether to charge goes, that's really a business decision rather than an operational one. Arin charges somewhere between 60 cents and a tenth of a cent per IP address, depending on how big you are. The process of obtaining the IP address blocks costs you something, as does processing the paperwork associated with the justifications, setting up and maintaining the routing, and so forth. Meanwhile, you're also charging your customers for various other services. You may or may not be making a sufficient amount to cover your costs in dealing with IP address allocation, and you may or may not be in a situation where your customers would be willing to pay you more. -Steve -- Steve Gibbard Steve Gibbard Consulting -- IP network consulting services Office: 510 528-1263 Cell: 415 717-7842 http://www.gibcons.com/
participants (5)
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Andy Dills -
bdragon＠gweep.net -
Daniel Abbey -
marc van hoof -
Steve Gibbard