- ncc-services-wg - mailman.ripe.net

Re: [ncc-services-wg] RIPE NCC and the Cloud: Draft Principles, Requirements and Strategy Framework
by Drew DeVault 01 Sep '21

01 Sep '21

The desire to use upgraded and modern technologies is strong among engineers, but it is essential to temper it with a sense of responsibility towards our users. RIPE's affairs are of critical importance for matters ranging from economics to national security for a broad range of countries and people, and this necessitates a careful, conservative approach to technology. RIPE lacks the privilege to experiment with unproven technologies or take a radical approach to its infrastructure. This can be balanced with an open-minded eye towards the state-of-the-art, and indeed it must in order to meet some requirements imposed on RIPE's infrastructure (such as security and performance), but a great deal of care must be taken in this process, with matters of international security, economics, and sovereignty in mind. It is a matter of our pride as engineers that we consider these issues carefully and incorporate the broader context into our decision-making on technology. With that in mind, the choice to use GCP and AWS seems misjudged. There are several principles laid out in this document which are not upheld with this choice. The most obvious is the preference for local providers. Amazon[0] and Google[1] are multi-nationals, but are US-first, hiring for AWS and GCP mainly (or entirely, in Amazon's case) outside of RIPE service areas. If Cloud is the future, the talent necessary to maintain that future is being centralized outside of RIPE's areas of interest, and by relying on them rather than investing in that talent locally, it betrays the sovereign interests of its members. Furthermore, these providers have a record of legal problems which stem from a US-first mindset and an unwillingness to obey laws in RIPE service regions, particularly the EU, with a historical record of GDPR violations, leading to steep fines[2][3]. These links cover only two fines, and there have been several more. [0]: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=%23SecOps&loc_query=&latitude=… [1]: https://paste.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/15aa14e9009a7ca99ba2511354c84a878a7f7894 [2]: https://edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2020/swedish-data-protection-auth… [3]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58024116 Additionally, the concerns regarding vendor-lock in and single-provider dependence in conflict with the prioritization for engineering time. The requirements necessary to establish a robust provider-neutral cloud deployment are comparable in effort to the requirements of a private cloud, and such a deployment would impose frustrating limitations such as limiting feature-use to the mutually-compatible subset of both clouds, or making the infrastructure more difficult to audit. And this is my recommendation: a private cloud. Tools like OpenStack and Kubernetes are widely available industry standards which allows for many of the same improvements RIPE seeks to establish with this initiative, but rates much better within the principles laid out here, as well as in terms of RIPE's stewardship over international interests. A private cloud also makes more sense in economic terms, a matter which is not to be taken lightly by the thoughtful engineer, as the move from private infrastructure to a commercial cloud would convert assets (the infrastructure) into liabilities (the cloud servers) by extracting a rent from RIPE, which, furthermore, is a rent paid to the US. Is the return to the economies in RIPE's service regions in greater than the expense of paying a tax to the United States? Even without considering the export of cloud expertise, or the difficult-to-measure effects on the soft power of RIPE's constituent nations, the answer is likely "no".

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Re: [ncc-services-wg] Draft Cloud Strategy Framework
by Antony Gollan 01 Sep '21

01 Sep '21

Dear Gert, Hank, Sorry for the delay with our response here. We have a few people taking their summer break at the moment, which has made it hard to get a proper response together. We will share something with the list next week. Kind regards, Antony Gollan Communications Team Leader RIPE NCC

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Draft Cloud Strategy Framework
by Felipe Victolla Silveira 11 Aug '21

11 Aug '21

Dear colleagues, Following the recent discussion on this list, we have published an article on RIPE Labs with principles, requirements and a new draft strategy framework for our use of cloud providers: https://labs.ripe.net/author/felipe_victolla_silveira/ripe-ncc-and-the-clou… <https://labs.ripe.net/author/felipe_victolla_silveira/ripe-ncc-and-the-clou…> We gave an overview of this at the interim session of this WG last week. You can find the recording and minutes from that session here: https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/wg/active-wg/services/minutes/ripe-nc… <https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/wg/active-wg/services/minutes/ripe-nc…> The chairs of the working group have been kind enough to schedule a second interim WG session for 6 September where we can discuss this framework in more detail. Until then, we look forward to hearing what you think on this mailing list. Kind regards, Felipe Victolla Silveira Chief Operations Officer RIPE NCC

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New on RIPE Labs: RIPE NCC and the Cloud - Let’s Start Again
by Patrik Fältström 11 Aug '21

11 Aug '21

I see the discussion about "RIPE NCC and cloud" in the archives and believe one of the reasons there seems to be a confusion is that indeed many issues are mixed in the same...hmm...whatever. I personally think deployment "in the cloud" implies an ability to deploy services in such a way (orchestration) that resources are dynamically allocated depending on for example load. This implies automatic scaling and dynamic allocation of storage, memory and CPU. Efficient such deployment can to some degree be independent of who is the provider of "the cloud". Quite often it is mostly efficient if in normal load it is deployed "on prem" while dynamic allocation during extreme load is "to an external provider". This to get most efficient use of the hardware one have invested in. For this to work, it is important to not(!) use specific services that often can also be offered by the provider of the cloud service. And this regardless of whether the deployment is on prem or externally. My suggested request to RIPE NCC is because of this to implement orchestration of services in such a way that the mechanism used is as provider neutral as possible. The 2nd request could be to remind RIPE NCC to do the actual deployment in an as efficient way as possible (whether on prem or not), but to be honest, this is what I always expect the Managing Director to do, and I do not think we members should do micro management. On top of this we have policy related requirements that in turn can be divided in two: 1. That RIPE NCC do not violate any by law requirements on data, data transfer, data storage and such things; and 2. That the policy expressed by the RIPE Community that is on top of the regulative requirements is implemented. Regarding these, I sure hope RIPE NCC is not violate any regulation. If they do we have some other issues. The 2nd list of requirements might have to do with the quite complicated situation RIPE NCC is in, to have customers in many different jurisdictions and the union of these legislations might be implemented in multiple ways, and when doing this selection on how to do "the right thing", RIPE community might have some interest in influencing it. I believe we see this for example in the DB WG on how to implement the database and here in this WG. But, separate from this I see questions where RIPE members do ask RIPE NCC to be more transparent on how (for example) legislation in the Netherlands is implemented. What I think we in the community should do though is to separate between when we want transparency and when we do believe we really do have input on issues that do not micro manage the work the managing director do. Personally, I think the Managing Director and his staff is doing good stuff and see no reason what so ever to question what decisions they have made. That said, I am curious in some cases to know what decisions they have made as maybe I have the same or similar deliberations to do at Netnod and might want to know more. But I do not question them. So, many things are intertwined and specifically mixed up are "us members being curious" and "us members actually wanting to provide input". From a technical stand point, I think the most important thing for "cloud" is to choose interoperable solutions so that migration from one cloud to another is possible, or at least as easy as possible. Including on-prem-clouds. Best, Patrik

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RIPE NCC Services WG Draft minutes - RIPE 82
by Bijal Sanghani 02 Aug '21

02 Aug '21

Dear All, The draft minutes from the NCC Services WG at RIPE 82 are available online - https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/wg/active-wg/services/minutes/ripe-nc… <https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/wg/active-wg/services/minutes/ripe-nc…> Please feel free to send comments to the chairs or the mailing list. Kind regards, NCC Services WG Chairs

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Related prefixes
by Hank Nussbacher 29 Jul '21

29 Jul '21

Is it just me or can others always reach: https://stat.ripe.net/widget/related-prefixes Sometimes works - sometimes 504 Gateway Time-out (nginx) Thanks, Hank

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Reminder: RIPE NCC Services WG Session on Cloud Strategy
by Felipe Victolla Silveira 28 Jul '21

28 Jul '21

Dear colleagues, Just a reminder that the RIPE NCC Services WG will be holding an interim session to discuss our cloud strategy today at 16:00 (UTC+2). We will give an update on our current thinking and hear more from the RIPE community on this. You can find the details for the session at: https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ncc-services-wg/2021-July/003446.ht… <https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ncc-services-wg/2021-July/003446.ht…> Kind regards, Felipe Silveira Chief Operations Officer RIPE NCC

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Re: [ncc-services-wg] RIPE NCC Infosheet
by Antony Gollan 22 Jul '21

22 Jul '21

Dear Hank, Thank you for pointing this out. We have updated the PDF on that link. Kind regards Antony Gollan Communications Team Manager RIPE NCC > Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2021 08:49:43 +0300 > From: Hank Nussbacher <hank(a)interall.co.il> > To: ncc-services-wg(a)ripe.net > Subject: [ncc-services-wg] RIPE NCC Infosheet > > Shouldn't this brochure be taken down or updated: > https://www.ripe.net/about-us/what-we-do/infosheet.pdf > 7150 members? Fees from 2011? > > Regards, > Hank

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Interim RIPE NCC Services WG Session on Cloud Strategy
by Felipe Victolla Silveira 22 Jul '21

22 Jul '21

Dear colleagues, The RIPE NCC Services WG will be holding an interim session on our cloud strategy on 28 July at 16:00 (UTC+2). If you would like to participate, you can find the details for this session here: https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ncc-services-wg/2021-July/003446.ht… <https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ncc-services-wg/2021-July/003446.ht…> At this session we will give an update on our current thinking and hear more from the RIPE community* to see if we can find a path towards rough consensus. We will publish an initial draft strategy shortly after the WG session and continue the discussion from there. Our strategy will also include some principles for how we will engage with the community around our core services and we will discuss this in the session as well. Kind regards, Felipe Silveira Chief Operations Officer RIPE NCC *The beginning of this discussion in the RIPE NCC Services WG can be found at: https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ncc-services-wg/2021-June/003408.ht… <https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ncc-services-wg/2021-June/003408.ht…>

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NCC Services WG Interim meetings
by Kurtis Lindqvist 22 Jul '21

22 Jul '21

All, The NCC Services WG chairs have received a request from the RIPE NCC for an interim meeting from the RIPE NCC to allow for a focused discussion around the NCC’s Cloud Strategy. The chairs have agreed to hold this interim meeting and due to the holiday times have opted to have two meetings to ensure maximum participation of the RIPE community. The first interim meeting will be on July the 28th at 16:00 CEST via Zoom. This meeting will be recorded and we will publish the recording. To meeting details for this session is : Topic: NCC Services WG Meeting Time: Jul 28, 2021 16:00 Amsterdam Join Zoom Meeting https://ripe.zoom.us/j/93434716511?pwd=dm43MHc2UXl3LzZndElJM2dMSnFHZz09 Meeting ID: 934 3471 6511 Passcode: 330022 Join by SIP 93434716511(a)zoomcrc.com Join by H.323 162.255.37.11 (US West) 162.255.36.11 (US East) 221.122.88.195 (China) 115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai) 115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad) 213.19.144.110 (Amsterdam Netherlands) 213.244.140.110 (Germany) 103.122.166.55 (Australia Sydney) 103.122.167.55 (Australia Melbourne) 209.9.211.110 (Hong Kong SAR) 64.211.144.160 (Brazil) 69.174.57.160 (Canada Toronto) 65.39.152.160 (Canada Vancouver) 207.226.132.110 (Japan Tokyo) 149.137.24.110 (Japan Osaka) Meeting ID: 934 3471 6511 Passcode: 330022 The second one will be on September the 6th at 16:00 CEST. Meeting details for meeting will be circulated later. The NCC have notified us that they intend to publish a further RIPE Labs article before the first interim meeting. These meetings are only intended to allow for discussion between the NCC and the RIPE community around the Cloud strategy and RIPE NCC’s use of Cloud services in a more focused environment than mailing lists allow for, but the mailing lists still remains the main discussion forum for the WG. On behalf of the RIPE NCC Service WG Chairs

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