Personnel Resources for RIPE NCC Core Services Daniel Karrenberg RIPE NCC Manager 25-Apr-1994 ABSTRACT This document describes the 1994 personnel needs to carry out the RIPE NCC core activities. Introduction Since the start of NCC operations in April 1992 the European Internet has been doubling roughly every year while the NCC staffing level has remained constant. The following table shows a number of growth indicators: NCC Start Q2/93 Q3/93 Q4/93 Now Hosts 170k 405k 470k 553k 655k RIPE DB Entries 5k 31k 38k 45k 57k Local Registries 0 61 75 83 96 Hostmaster Mail 0 ? 660 900 1342 NCC FTEs 3 3 3 2.6 2.6+.5 From the number of hosts it can be seen that the European Internet has quadrupled in size since the NCC started operations. The number - 2 - of RIPE database entries has increased by an order of magnitude during this time. This clearly indicates the acceptance of the RIPE database and the NCC by the community. The number of local Internet registries indicates that the NCC has been successful in setting up a distributed Internet registry system in Europe and that the number of entities the NCC has to coordinate for the registry function is steadily increasing. The growth in the number of registries also indicates that the number of Internet service providers is increasing. The number of received hostmaster mail messages per quarter indicates that the workload of the RIPE NCC providing registry services is increasing drastically. At the moment this means that peak loads create growing backlogs. Other coordination services see similar patterns. While the workload keeps growing the personnel available to handle it has remained constant. Personnel available decreased briefly in Q4/93 as the NCC manager now partly works for -and is funded by- the PRIDE project. The increase to 3.1 now is due to the trainee being quite effective in dealing with routine matters. Please note that the number of personnel working at the NCC has indeed increased over time. However the additional personnel is working on and funded by special projects, currently PRIDE, and not available for the NCC core activities. When the load caused by the coordination activities rose more quickly then expected in Q3 1993 NCC management reported this in the public quarterly report: "Analysis shows that the Internet Registry function of the NCC uses an increasing amount of resources which is expected to exceed 1 FTE by early next year. This is a somewhat unexpected development due to an increasing number of requests for significant amounts of address space. It is important that the NCC be involved in the handling of these requests in order to ensure fair allocations across Europe. Since routine registry activities have a high priority, it can be expected that other NCC activities will suffer if personnel resources cannot be extended by mid 1994." The personnel resource shortage continues to worsen to this date as reported in subsequent quarterly reports. The resources needed by coordination activities continue to grow more quickly than expected. The RIPE NCC cannot function effectively without adequate staffing. - 3 - Resource Allocation The following table shows resources expressed in FTEs related to the sections of the current RIPE NCC activity plan (ripe-110). The columns represent the current resources used, an estimation of the current need and a prediction of the need in September 1994 respectively. Current resource usage is based on an analysis per activity and staff member. Estimates and predictions are based on current growth rates and outstanding actions per activity. "Overhead" represents general housekeeping tasks associated with running the office, the network, the computers etc. which cannot be directly attributed to a specific activity. For a detailed description of the activities, please refer to the activity plan. currently currently September used needed 1994 need 3. Coordination Activities 1.7 2.4 2.9 4. Development Activities 0.3 0.5 0.6 5. RIPE Activity Support 0.3 0.6 0.6 6. Reporting 0.3 0.3 0.3 Overhead 0.5 0.5 0.5 SUM 3.1 4.3 4.9 It can clearly be seen from the table that coordination activities both take the bulk of the NCC resources and grow most quickly. A big part of this is the registry service. It can also be seen that at the current time the personnel shortage and priority for the registry service clearly cause other activities to suffer. The estimated need currently exceeds the available resources by more than one FTE. Measures Already Taken The activity plan has been carefully reviewed and streamlined by RIPE in January 1994. Overtaken and unrealistic activities have been deleted. NCC management have taken a number of measures to relieve the pressure caused by the personnel shortage. Efficiency measures include streamlined procedures for routine tasks, a standard text tool for frequent types of messages, FAX traffic fully integrated with electronic mail, all routine correspondence (including FAX) is retrievable via a full-text search system, routine tasks are automated with tailor-made tools as much as possible. - 4 - Procedures for the registry and other routine tasks have been tightened and a roster system of specific roles introduced to guarantee coverage and fair distribution of routine work. The NCC staff have also temporarily accepted to devote a bigger percentage of their time to routine tasks. For the technical personnel (i.e. all current personnel) this cannot be sustained much longer. Currently all NCC staff regularly work from home after hours. Our current trainee Geza Turchanyi has taken part in all routine tasks. Without his effort the situation would be much worse. It should be noted that his contract cannot be extended beyond July 1994. If more personnel will not be available at this time service levels will have to be cut drastically. Consequences of the Personnel Shortage NCC staff spend a bigger and bigger proportion of their time doing routine tasks. Critical non-routine actions are not being carried out at all at this point. These include: - revise RIPE DB documentation - introduce handles in database - database coordination with InterNIC - make the RIPE DB "classless" - support for local registries While these actions can be postponed for a limited amount of time, they cannot be stalled indefinitely without severely impacting the functioning of the NCC and the European Internet as a whole. It should also be noted that the cover for unexpected absence of staff (e.g. for illness etc.) is extremely thin at this point. Plan In order to relieve the pressure caused by the increase in routine activity an administrative staff member is needed immediately. The duties of that staff member will be to deal with routine requests to the NCC as much as possible. Although the tasks will be mainly administrative a very good aptitude for working with the Internet and Internet tools is required. This new staff member will have to be trained before the current trainee leaves. Speed is of the essence. The current NCC personnel budget line covers the expected expense of this. - 5 - Around September 1994 another technical staff member is needed. The requirements for this position are roughly the same as the last engineer position filled. For this position an additional expenditure budget is needed. Since the number of service providers is increasing additional income should be available. An assessment of the possible extra income needs to be made as soon as possible. If this is not sufficient additional income will have to be sought. According to current estimates the two added FTEs per this plan still fall short of the expected need by 0.3 FTE. This shortage will have to be spread over the activities according to the needs at the time. If the additional personnel resources will not be available, services will have to be cut. If this is likely the advice of RIPE will be essential in making the decisions. The risk that the NCC will loose qualified and trained staff will also increase. The current staff members were hired with task descriptions allowing only up to 50% routine duty. Conclusion The RIPE NCC needs an administrative staff member immediately and another technical staff member by September 1994.