ION Toronto, 11 November 2013: The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standardizes the protocols and services that vendors implement and network operators are supposed to deploy and use. We believe there is an opportunity to better identify, capture, and promote best current operational practices documents emerging from various regional network operators’ groups. We believe sharing these documents across the globe would benefit the wider Internet community and help more operators deploy new technologies like IPv6 and DNSSEC faster and easier. Many operators need down-to-earth information on how to fix their current issues and how to implement new technologies coming out of the IETF. How can the Internet Society help facilitate this work?

1. Best Current Operational Practices (BCOP) –
updates and results from around the world
Deploy360 – Internet Society
www.internetsociety.org

2. About Me – A Quick History
Name: Jan Žorž
Founder of Slovenian Go6 Institute
Worked in Internet operations for 20+ years
13 years of IPv6 experience
Active and contributing member of RIPE and IETF
communities
Primary co-author of RIPE-501/RIPE-554 IPv6 procurement
BCP document
Co-author of RFC 6346 (A+P approach to IPv4 depletion)
Joined Internet Society Deploy360 Programme in December
2012
BCOP | February 2013

3. Internet Society Deploy360 Programme
IPv6, DNSSEC, and Routing knowledge including
tutorials, case studies, training resources, and more.
http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/
BCOP | February 2013

4. What’s a BCOP?
Best Current Operational Practice
• A current document describing how to best
achieve an operational practice agreed by
subject matter experts and periodically
reviewed by community
BCOP | February 2013

5. Problem Statement
• I have an operational problem and would
like to know the best current operational
practice to solve it.
• There are hundreds of operational forums
globally
• All stored in different formats, some
searchable, rarely have speech text or
video, no vetting, and state unknown.
BCOP | February 2013

6. The Challenge
Best Current Operational Practices have historically
been shared between operators in many different
ways:
• hallway conversations
• operator group presentations
• email lists
• web forum threads
• Personal relationships
• IRC/chats
BCOP | February 2013

7. The Challenge, cont.
Not all operators have access to all of these ad-hoc
sharing methods (some, particularly in emerging
and developing areas, have none)
There is currently no quick and easy way for an
operator to find and reference all of these best
practices for immediate use in administering their
local network
There is too much clutter in the IT landscape for
network operators to easily find reliable, vetted,
current, user-friendly documentation
BCOP | February 2013

8. A Solution Idea - BCOP Repositories
We believe a neutral and regionally organized repository of
documents that describes Best Current Operational
Practices could help:
•
speed up deployment of IPv6, DNSSEC, and other key standards
•
make the routing infrastructure more resilient
•
simplify network deployments for less traveled operators
These documents should be written by experienced
operators and be globally accessible to everyone in an open
and neutral location without fees
We are committed to assisting in the creation and promotion
of these repositories.
BCOP | February 2013

9. What is a BCOP repository?
Open repository of living BCOPs developed in an open
forum in which anyone may participate
Bottom Up development process by engineers, for
engineers
– Operator consensus driven
Transparent with all aspects documented and publicly
available
On-going and revision controlled, subject to ongoing
supervision
– Vetted via community-written development process and
subject matter experts
BCOP | February 2013

10. What is a BCOP repository? (cont.)
Free from Organizational Agendas
– reflect individual operator experiences
Synthesized knowledge from entire community
– reflect the vast knowledge from all parts of the world
Communal Knowledge available to all
– Adds documentation for any and all to help advance the Internet’s
development
Advancement of the Internet to all reaches of the world (and
beyond)
– contribute to the common knowledge base for all facets of the
evolving Internet everywhere in the world
BCOP | February 2013

11. BCOP work and feedback from around the planet
-
NANOG57 – Orlando
-
UKnof – London
-
PLNOG10 – Warsaw
-
MENOG – Kuwait
-
World IPv6 Congress – Paris
-
PLNOG11 – Krakow
-
North American IPv6 Summit
– Denver
-
RIPE67 – Athens
-
LACNOG – Curacao
-
ION Toronto – (here we are)
-
LACNOG – Medellin
-
RIPE Regional SEE2
meeting – Skopje
-
AfriNOG - Côte D'Ivoire (s.t.g.)
-
CARIBNOG5 – Barbados
-
JANOG – Japan (s.t.g.)
-
RIPE66 – Dublin
-
NZNOG – New Zealand (s.t.g.)
-
ENOG – St. Petersburg
-
APRICOT – Bangkok (s.t.g.)
-
AfNOG/NIC – Lusaka
BCOP | February 2013

12. BCOP Repositories – already started?
Some years ago, the NANOG community started an
IPBCOP effort (Aaron Hughes, Chris Grundemann,
and others)
That effort has now become a regional BCOP track/
WG at NANOG
They asked us to help with starting and promoting a
global BCOP repository
BCOP | February 2013

13. BCOP Repositories – already started?
Our original proposal involved a top-down global
structure
Strong feedback from the global operator
community (particularly at RIPE and NANOG) led
us to pivot:
- Let’s start the work regionally, produce
something useful, and publish it
- Coordination and a global repository might
naturally emerge out of a real need
BCOP | February 2013

14. First idea of proposed
BCOP Schema
BCOP | February 2013

15. Let’s get the content in the regions started first;
the global structure will emerge naturally if needed
NANOG
regional
BCOP
RIPE
regional
BCOP
APRICOT
regional
BCOP
Individual
Operators
AfNOG
regional
BCOP
Localized
NOGs
Vendors
and Others
(IETF, etc.)
BCOP | February 2013
LACNOG
regional
BCOP

16. WEB page with URL pointers
to the work done in regions
NANOG
regional
BCOP
RIPE
regional
BCOP
APRICOT
regional
BCOP
Individual
Operators
AfNOG
regional
BCOP
Localized
NOGs
Vendors
and Others
(IETF, etc.)
BCOP | February 2013
LACNOG
regional
BCOP

17. BCOP activity around the world:
• Africa region: started the initiative at AFRINIC in
Côte D'Ivoire, lead by Douglas Onyango
• Latin America: started a BCOP Task Force (Carlos
Martínez Cagnazzo and Antonio Marcos Moreiras
volunteered to run the effort)
• North America: NANOG BCOP Track established
• Europe: RIPE BCOP Task Force created
• Middle East: Presented at MENOG in Kuwait
• Asia: I’m here, talking to you. (Talked at JANOG
and NZNOG already.)
BCOP | February 2013

18. Some of the identified topics
(mainly from NANOG and RIPE region so far)
• Inhibiting Address Spoofing
• BGP Policies
• Peering Policies
• DNS Policies
• Email Policies
• ICMP Filtering
• Pingable attribute in whois
BCOP | February 2013

19. Some of the identified topics
(mainly from NANOG and RIPE region so far)
• How to test your network performance
• How to check your visibility from global Internet
• Ethernet OAM
• De-Aggregation: strict filtering /48s out of /32
• How are operators using IRR?
• IPv6 enterprise network renumbering scenarios,
considerations, and methods
• … (we need more suggestions)
BCOP | February 2013

20. Removing one of the next IPv6 speedbumps
• One of the first speedbumps was addressed by
RIPE-554
• Next speedbump is lack of IPv6 knowledge at
ISP helpdesks
• We started a document “Generic IPv6
troubleshooting and procedures for helpdesks
around the world…”
• This could be a first cross-regions cooperation
effort as every region is probably a bit different.
BCOP | February 2013

21. Removing one of the next IPv6 speedbumps
Title: “Generic IPv6 troubleshooting procedures
for helpdesks around the world”
Contributors: Lee Howard, John Jason Brzozowski, David
Freedman, Jason Fesler, Tim Chown, Sander Steffann, Chris
Grundemann, Jan Žorž
This document is intended to provide a starting point for
technical support staff at ISPs or enterprise IT helpdesks in
supporting IPv6. Problems with IPv6 are very rare, but fear
of the unknown has prevented or delayed many
organizations from rolling out IPv6 to their users, when all
technical problems have been solved. While this document
cannot encompass all possible problems, it should provide a
solid first step for front-line support personnel.
BCOP | February 2013

22. Websites
BCOP topics:
http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/about/bcop/topics/
What’s going on around the world:
http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/about/bcop/
BCOP | February 2013

23. The way Forward
• Strong BCOP initiative in NANOG
• Contribute, contribute, contribute!
BCOP | February 2013

24. Jan Žorž
Internet Society Deploy360 Programme
http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/
mailto:<zorz@isoc.org>
www.internetsociety.org