Dear all, I neglected to forward you this blog post earlier, but I am sending along now since it is relevant to our discussions in the CWG. If you have any questions, I¹ve copied the author, Alain Durand, who joined ICANN a few months ago and is following the work of the CWG. Original link: https://www.icann.org/news/blog/iana-functions-usage-analysis IANA Functions Usage Analysis When I joined ICANN a few months ago and learned that part of my role would be supporting the IANAStewardship Transition process, I wanted to learn more about how those functions are actually operated and how much the community uses them. My background has been in the IETF for 20+ years where I chaired several working groups and authored a number of RFC¹s, so I have always known the IANAregistries as a user of the functions, however I was not very intimate with its internal operation. The IANA department performs a set of tasks that involves the coordination of many of the identifiers that allow the global Internet to operate. Notably, it maintains registries, which are most often simply text files, for three Internet communities: the Domain Names community, the Numbering Resources community (including the Regional Internet Registries or RIRs) and the Protocol Parameters community (including the Internet Engineering Task Force or IETF). In total, the IANA department maintains more than 2,800 registries. I looked back at the various statistics available and compiled usage data over the last five years and I was surprised at how little I knew about the scope of the work being done there. I hope the result of this study will also be helpful to all of those in the community that are actively involved in the transition process. I. Domain Names Community Country Code TLDs (ccTLDs) Requests about ccTLDs can be classified broadly into two categories, depending on the workload they generate: ccTLD (re-)delegations and ccTLD changes such as administrative or technical contact changes and DS record updates. Generic TLDs (gTLDs) Similarly, gTLD requests can be classified broadly in two categories: gTLD (re-)delegations and gTLDchanges such as administrative or technical contact changes, and name server or DS record updates. On this graph, we clearly see the impact of the introduction of new gTLDs. II. Numbers Community IPv4, IPv6 and Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) The numbers community requests IPv4 unicast address blocks, IPv6 unicast address blocks and blocks of Autonomous Systems Numbers (ASNs). Large IPv6 unicast address blocks were requested by the RIRs prior to 2010 and no additional requests have yet been received. IANA¹s pool of unallocated IPv4 unicast addresses was exhausted in 2011, however since that date, a few IPv4 unicast address blocks were returned to ICANN and later redistributed to the RIRs according to global policies. III. Protocol Parameters Community IETF Registries The vast majority of the registries maintained by ICANN as the IANA function operator are for protocol parameters defined and used by the IETF. Private Enterprise Numbers The most heavily used IETF protocol parameter registry is for Private Enterprise Numbers (PENs). PENs are typically used in Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Management Information Base (MIB) configurations. To make the diagram easier to read, I¹ve separated the PEN requests from the other IETFrequests. IV. Total usage This final graph represents a picture of all the requests processed for all of the three communities Domain Names, Numbering Resources and Protocol Parameters over the last 5 years. Note, to make the graph easier to read, the cc-TLDs and gTLDs delegations/re-delegations are shown on a secondary axis, on the right hand side of the graph. As you can see from the graph with the introduction of new gTLDs, the volume of requests related to delegations/re-delegations of TLDs has grown substantially. Requests from the Numbering Resources community have remained flat, and we are seeing an upswing in Protocol Parameter requests after a lull in mid-2012. Overall, with the exception of the introduction of new gTLDs, the volume of requests related to the IANA functions has remained very predictable over a five-year period. Again, I hope that you found this data helpful, as I know I did, to understand the scope of the IANAfunctions. Those functions are critical to maintain the security and stability of the Internet.