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APNIC Document identity
Title: Asia Pacific Network Information Center Pilot Project
Organizational Proposals and a Preliminary Budget
Short title: pilot-project-budget
Document ref: APNIC-005
Version: 001
Date of original publication: 10 December 1993
Date of this version: 10 December 1993
Review scheduled: n/a
Obsoletes: n/a
Status: Historical
Comments: n/a
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APNIC-005.0 D. Conrad
Informational Document December 1993
Asia Pacific Network Information Center Pilot Project
Organizational Proposals and a Preliminary Budget
Issued: December 10, 1993
Expires: Not Applicable
1. Introduction
In January 1993 at the Honolulu APCCIRN meeting, it was resolved
that efforts should be undertaken to establish an Asia Pacific Network
Information Center (APNIC)[1]. Following the Inet '93 meeting in San
Francisco in August, the third APCCIRN meeting was held and the APNIC
was again a topic for discussion[2]. The original APNIC proposal[3] was
expanded and the initiation of the public phase of the APNIC pilot pro-
ject was slated for September 1, 1993.
The goals of the APNIC pilot project are primarily to investigate
issues involved in setting up a Network Information Center for the Asia
and Pacific Rim regions[4,5]. Support for the APNIC pilot project has
been generously donated by the Japanese national Network Information
Center, JPNIC and the pilot project staff is composed of volunteers from
Japan, Korea, Thailand, Australia, and the USA.
This paper is some preliminary thoughts by the staff of the APNIC
pilot project on the permanent APNIC organizational issues and a prelim-
inary budget proposal. It is hoped that the information discussed in
this document will provide food for thought to the APCCIRN during its
deliberations regarding the permanent APNIC.
2. Organizational Issues
The Asia Pacific Network Information Center is assumed to be a neu-
tral, not-for-profit organization who's primary goal is to provide
infrastructural support for internetworking in the Asia and Pacific Rim
regions. As more fully described in "Various Proposals for the Asia
Pacific Network Information Center"[3], this infrastructural support
includes such functions as allocation of blocks of class C addresses,
maintainence of informational stores and databases relating to network-
ing in the Asia Pacific region, providing initial point of contact and
referral services for individuals and organizations interested in Inter-
networking, etc.
It is further assumed that the APNIC will provide these functions
to all appropriate members of the Asia Pacific networking community, be
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APNIC-005.0 December 1993
they research and education oriented or commercially oriented, as a pub-
lic trust. With this being the case, it is clear that the APNIC will
come under the jurisdiction of the Asia Pacific Coordinating Committee
for International Research Networking (APCCIRN) and the Asia Pacific
Engineering and Planning Group (APEPG).
In order to facilitate the evaluation of how APNIC is fulfilling
its duty to the Asia Pacific networking community, the staff of the
APNIC proposes to prepare a status report of the APNIC not less than
twice a year to be presented to the APCCIRN and APEPG on or around Janu-
ary 1 and July 1 of each year. These status reports will include a gen-
eral recap of the services the APNIC provide to the AP region networking
community over the previous six months.
As the Asia Pacific region's portion of the Internet is expanding
at a rapid rate, it is difficult to estimate the resource requirements
of a regional Network Information Center over an extended period of
time. It is therefore proposed that the APNIC will provide budgetary
estimates to the APCCIRN for a three year operating period at a time.
This three year operating period should be initiated at the beginning of
the second year of the three year term of the chairmanship of the
APCCIRN. In order to provide a resonable lead time prior to the termi-
nation of a three year operating period, it is proposed that the APNIC
staff prepare the next three year operating period budget within six
months to one year of the termination of the then current operating
period.
Since the APNIC is operating as a public trust for the entire net-
working community of the Asia and Pacific Rim regions as represented by
the constituents of the APCCIRN and APEPG, it is proposed that, in the
event of some dispute regarding operational matters, the APNIC will take
all appropriate steps to resolve the dispute while keeping the APCCIRN
and APEPG informed of the issues. In the event that those steps are
ineffective, the staff of the APNIC will defer to the consensus opinion
of the APCCIRN and/or the APEPG in order to resolve the issue.
It is hoped that with these proposals as a start, the APCCIRN will
be able to produce a framework in which the permanent APNIC can be con-
structed. While these proposals do not attempt to be exhaustive, they
should provide a useful beginning for deliberations on issues involved
in creating a Network Information Center for the Asia and Pacific Rim
regions.
3. Budgetary Estimates
Given the previously stated proposal of a three year operating
period for the APNIC, what follows is a proposal for the first three
year budget.
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APNIC-005.0 December 1993
3.1. Assumptions
This proposed budget is assumed to be effective from July 1, 1994
to July 1, 1997. It is also assumed, for the sake of some of the actual
numbers below, that the APNIC will exist within Japan during this
timeframe and while in Japan, the APNIC will utilize the facilities of
the Fujisawa campus of Kieo University. If the APNIC does not reside
within Japan for its first term, some of the monetary figures which fol-
low will need to be modified. Furthermore, if the APNIC is located in
Japan, it is assumed APNIC will utilize the facilities of the Fujisawa
campus of Keio University.
Finally, one last assumption: given these budgetary figures are
estimates, some leeway will be assumed to account for exceptional situa-
tions.
3.2. Personnel
Since the APNICs functions can, for the most part, be delegated to
national NICs, APNIC should not require a significant level of staffing.
From the operation of the APNIC pilot project, the following "Full Time
Equivalents" or FTEs are proposed to provide full staffing for the
APNIC.
0.5 FTE Managerial Support
0.5 FTE Technical Support
1.0 FTE Administrative Support
Note that these FTEs may not actually correspond to a single person
for each FTE (e.g., some of the FTEs may be filled by a number of part-
time employees).
In terms of actual funding, a single FTE will be assumed to require
10,000,000 yen per annum. This figure includes all taxes, benefits such
as health, social security, etc., and yearly salary. Thus, the two FTEs
proposed above would require a total of 20,000,000 yen per annum.
3.3. Capital Equipment
In the case of computer equipment, both hardware and software,
there are two categories of funding. The first is startup costs which
will occur one time during the three year operating period, the other is
a recurring cost that will occur each year of APNIC's operation. The
startup costs corresponds to buying the initial hardware and software.
The recurring costs refer charges for such items as maintenance con-
tracts, software upgrade fees, and machine upgrade and/or replacement.
3.3.1. Startup Budget
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APNIC-005.0 December 1993
Since APNIC will have need to provide several varieties of informa-
tion and database services, APNIC will require service machines. It is
envisioned that a service machine has a large quantity of disk and suf-
ficient CPU power to handle a large number of perhaps compute intensive
queries or retrievals simultaneously. For APNIC's purposes, two servers
should be sufficient.
In addition to the two servers mentioned previously, each FTE will
require a single user workstation. The user workstations can be assumed
to not require significant disk resources, since the user workstations
will be assumed to be dataless (i.e., the user workstations will keep
user files on one of the APNIC servers). Since the user workstations
will be used on a daily basis, excellent graphics and usability features
are assumed to be required. Thus, the CPU requirements of the user
machines will be on par with that of the servers.
Other assorted hardware which will be required for the operation of
APNIC includes:
Postscript printer (minimum 300 dpi resolution)
Tape Drive (for backups)
CD ROM (for software and informational distributions)
Local Area Network hardware
Additional hardware which may be considered optional but highly
desirable would includes:
Color printer (presentation quality)
Duplex feature for Postscript printer
Laptop computer with assorted options
Scanner
As for computer software, it is assumed that both the servers and
user workstations will be running some variety of Unix. Additional
software licenses will be necessary for such software products as:
Multilingual Word Processor
Software development tools
Page layout software
Statistical/Mathematical software
The following table summarizes the hardware and software require-
ments and provides a rough estimate for the costs of those requirements.
In the cases of equipment which requires addtional supplies (e.g. toner
cartidges for printers), the budgeted cost includes the cost for those
supplies.
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APNIC-005.0 December 1993
Individual Total
Qty Equipment Cost (in Yen) Cost (in Yen)
2 Servers 1,000,000 2,000,000
3 Workstations 750,000 2,250,000
1 PS Printer 550,000 550,000
1 Tape drive 325,000 325,000
1 CD ROM drive 100,000 100,000
* LAN hardware 210,000 210,000
* Software 500,000 500,000
* Miscellaneous 500,000 500,000
Total 6,435,000
Other than computer equipment mentioned previously, APNIC has the
following additional capital equipment requirements:
Individual Total
Qty Equipment Cost (in Yen) Cost (in Yen)
1 Plain paper FAX 350,000 350,000
1 Answering machine 40,000 40,000
3 Telephones 15,000 45,000
* Office furniture 1,000,000 1,000,000
Total 1,435,000
Thus, combining the totals for the startup costs leads to an ini-
tial one time cost of 7,870,000 yen to initiate the permanent APNIC
3.3.2. Recurring Costs
In order to keep the machinery and software up to date and in good
working order, it will be necessary to allocate a certain level of fund-
ing to be used to purchase hardware and software maintenance contracts,
upgrades, and replacements for hardware that is unable to meet APNIC
requirements over time. It is assumed that 20% of the above total
should suffice to fulfill these requirements.
3.4. Environment
With the assumption that APNIC will be based at the Fujisawa campus
of Kieo University in Japan mentioned previously, office space, utili-
ties such as electricity, water, heating and cooling, etc, and network
connectivity will be provided free of charge according to an agreement
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APNIC-005.0 December 1993
offered by the University. If APNIC is not based in Japan, then these
factors will need to be included in the APNIC three year operating
budget.
3.5. Miscellaneous
In addition to the items mentioned above, additional funding will
need to be supplied to provide for various aspects of APNIC operating
expenses such as long distance telephone calls, travel for various meet-
ings and conferences, etc. With respect to travel expenses, it is
assumed that APNIC staff may be required to travel extensively as it has
been noted that political relations in the Asia Pacific region are more
attuned to personal contact than to other methods. With this being the
case, an addtional 4,000,000 yen should be budgeted to handle these
expenses per annum.
3.6. Summary
Summing the figures for the recurring costs leads to a total yearly
cost for the operation of APNIC of 25,574,000 yen. Including the one
time charges necessary to begin the operation of APNIC leads to a grand
total of 76,592,000 yen for the first three year operating term of
APNIC.
4. Conclusions
This paper has presented a proposals for a general outline for
organization issues and a rough budget for consideration in the creation
of a permanent Network Information Center for the Asia Pacific region.
For organization issues, the key points noted were that the APNIC
is a neutral, not-for-profit organization operating for the public trust
under the auspices of the APCCIRN and APEPG and that the APNIC would
operate and would be funding on a three year operating term and for a
rough budget, some figures were presented leading to a proposal of a
total of 72,592,000 yen spaced over three years.
It is hoped that the APCCIRN can make use of the information pro-
vided in this document in its deliberations on the creation of a per-
manent Network Information Center for Asia and the Pacific Rim.
5. References
[1] Chon, K., "Minutes of the January 1993 Honolulu APCCIRN Meeting",
nic.nm.kr:/apccirn/021.minute.Jan93, January 1993.
[2] Chon, K., "Minutes of the August 1993 San Francisco APCCIRN Meeting",
nic.nm.kr:/apccirn/038.ccirn.min.Aug93, August 1993.
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APNIC-005.0 December 1993
[3] Murai, J., and Hirabaru, M., "A Proposal for APNIC Experiments",
nic.nm.kr:/apccirn/020.apnic.proposal, January 1993.
[4] Murai, J., and Conrad, D., "Asia Pacific Network Information
Center Pilot Project Proposal",
apnic.net:/apnic/docs/english/apnic-003.txt, August 1993.
[5] APNIC Staff, "Various Proposals for the Asia Pacific Network
Information Center", apnic.net:/apnic/docs/english/apnic-004.txt,
December 1993.
6. Author's Address
David R. Conrad
Internet Initiative Japan, Inc.
2-11-2 Nagatacho, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 100 Japan
Tel: +81-3-3580-3781
Fax: +81-3-3580-3782
Email: davidc@iij.ad.jp
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