

IRR - 2 - About the IRR Project
1. Transition
Until the launch of AFRINIC’s IRR in 2013, members were encouraged to use the RIPE IRR to register their routing objects. Now that AFRINIC has its own IRR at rr.afrinic.net, members are encouraged to populate it by moving their routing information over.
A list of AFRINIC members’ route objects registered in the APNIC, RADB RIPE IRR has been generated and published here to enable members decide if they want to move/replicate these objects into the AFRINIC IRR. Members are advised to use this list to crosscheck the objects we were able to identify in the APNIC, RADB, RIPE IRR in preparation for populating them into AFRINIC IRR.
To facilitate this transition, and ensure smooth manipulation of existing data, AFRINIC will offer IRR Boot camps to all interested members. The IRR Boot camps aim to equip members with the information needed to create new, accurate entries in the AFRINIC IRR. No objects already created in APNIC, RADB, RIPE IRR will be moved/replicated by AFRINIC before a member participates in a boot camp.
2. Project Phases
The AFRINIC IRR deployment is scheduled as follow:
Phases | Status |
1. Deployment of AFRINIC IRR as part of WHOIS Service 1.0 v1.33 | Completed in June 2013 |
2. Deployment of AFRINIC IRR in New WHOIS Service 2.0 | Ongoing |
2.1 Internal testing and beta deployment | Completed 15 August 2014 |
2.2 Production Deployment | Completed 30 August 2014 |
2.3 Mirroring Agreement | Ongoing |
a. RIPE NCC | Completed |
b. APNIC | Completed |
c. RADB | Completed |
d. NTT Communications | Completed |
2.4 IRR Population | Ongoing |
a. New Member | Begin 9 September 2014 |
b. Boot Camps | Estimated Time to begin 15 September 2014 |
3. Resources Not Administered by AFRINIC
Currently, the AFRINIC Routing Registry does not support the creation of routing policies referencing resources not administered by AFRINIC. This makes it impossible for our members to create routing policies with a prefix or an origin assigned by another RIR. To address that situation, we are working on two solutions in parallel:
- Enabling secured referencing of resources not administered by AFRINIC in order to prevent possible hijacking. This is a short term solution which we expect to implement by end of May 2015
- Cross-registry authentication as a longer-term solution. With this approach it will not be necessary to have foreign resources and duplication of maintainer objects across various registries. The implementation of this approach is currently being evaluated in collaboration with the other four (4) RIRs.