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Research issues, Testing

 

Open Questions

While writing this proposal, a number of questions came up that need further investigation. These are listed in this section.

  1. Empirically investigate the added value in collecting information at different places. Determine how one can best select the sites were data is collected. Determine how to merge identical data collected at different sites.
  2. As can be seen from table 1, the RIS will have to handle large amounts of data. What is the best database to use for this project and how can its performance be optimized/tuned for this project?
  3. Find out, in collaboration with the first users, how long the data should remain in the database?
  4. Is the full data still useful after a while, or can it be reduced to a smaller sample that is only sufficient to produce statistics?
  5. Determine the optimal number of routing table dumps per day based on practical experience with the first RRC's.
  6. Investigate if default routes should be collected as well. Default routes are routes that are used by routers if no information about a certain IP-prefix is known.
  7. It will be necessary idea to maintain a mirror data-base of the aut-num objects (and their history) in the RIR databases. When analyzing data at a later point in time this information will be essential. The maximum number of ASN's is 64&thicksp;k so this will not create a large volume of data. However, the data is stored into several whois-servers so a common format and tools to extract information from the servers will have to be defined.
  8. Investigate what kind of support is necessary for RRC and Server machines at NCC on a ``24/7''-basis, in order to make the RIS available to its users full time.

Alpha- and Beta-testing

For a service as the RIS, it is essential that the potential users of the service are involved from the first stage of development. The RIPE NCC has therefore started to look for users of the alpha- and beta-versions. Inside the NCC, there is interest in using the first versions and work on the definition of the user interface, database queries and other services based on the data.

Outside the NCC, at least 4 sites have shown interest in providing us with data through peering sessions and it is hoped that these sites will also act as the first external users of the project.

In order to get optimal feedback from the first users, documentation and a user's manual will be written as the project is being developed. The documentation will describe the program, the user's manual will show how the data should be interpreted and how it can be used for operational purposes. It is also planned to give regular progress reports in the appropriate RIPE-WG's and solicit input from all interested parties.

When the project is in a more mature state, turning the RIS into a regular service will be discussed in the RIPE-WG's.


next up previous
Next: Interface to the IRR Up: Routing Information Service Previous: Final Setup

Henk Uijterwaal
Thu Oct 14 13:53:27 MEST 1999