Shaping the Future of MANRS: Defining Roles and Responsibilities in Today’s MANRS Ecosystem

MANRS started with a group of network operators agreeing to a set of baseline requirements that, if implemented widely, significantly improves routing hygiene and security. And then, when nine of them jointly committed to these requirements, called MANRS Actions, the initiative was launched. It was November 2014.

Since then, more than 10 years ago, MANRS grew from nine network operators to almost 1300, from one program to four, including IXPs, CDN and cloud providers, and network equipment vendors. From a small project at the Internet Society with two colleagues reviewing applications, promoting and publicizing the effort, to having a professional secretariat, now provided by Global Cyber Alliance, with auditing, communication, and engagement teams supporting the initiative. From an informal community undertaking to a well-established governance structure with an elected Steering Committee, a Charter and now a MANRS Development Process.

MANRS is a true “team effort.” And I do not only mean the team at the Secretariat, I mean all organizations and individuals that support the mission of MANRS and its objectives of making the Internet’s routing system more secure, based on collaboration and individual commitment to a common baseline. These entities form a MANRS ecosystem and are crucial for MANRS’ sustainable growth and increasing impact.

The roles and responsibilities of various entities have changed over time and it is important to think about how these roles could evolve in the future. Because this will largely define the future of MANRS itself.

To discuss and develop the “big picture” of MANRS, the Steering Committee and the MANRS Secretariat engaged in a series of working sessions last year. The outcome was a common understanding of the future evolution of the MANRS ecosystem and changes in the definition of roles and responsibilities for different entities constituting it.

Let us start with two entities that existed from the beginning – the MANRS Participants and the Secretariat. MANRS Participants are organizations that have met and continue to meet the criteria defined in the MANRS Actions and have been audited and approved by the MANRS Secretariat. The Secretariat is the administrative personnel supporting the MANRS activities. This function was provided by the Internet Society until 2024, when the Global Cyber Alliance took over. 

Originally, no distinction was made between the MANRS Participants and the MANRS Community, but gradually the community became broader than just participants, including MANRS organizational partners and individuals supporting the MANRS mission. With the introduction of the MANRS Development Process (MDP) it became obvious that MANRS would benefit from input from a community that is broader than just its participants. One of the benefits is that its requirements and other outputs will better reflect global consensus, making them more attractive for network operators that are not participants yet. This reinforces the understanding that MANRS Participants and the MANRS Community are two different, albeit overlapping, entities.

As a result, we need to delineate the roles of the Participants and Community respectively. For example, only participants can elect the Steering Community members; participants approve the MANRS standards, while the Community actively participates in their development. 

The role of the Steering Committee has also been changing. Started as an advisory group, it has grown into a mature governance body, responsible for the proposal, development, approval, and technical quality of community activities. It also has a prominent role in the recently approved MANRS Development Process – a process that will be used for many of the community activities – from proposing new features in MANRS, to reviewing and updating various MANRS documents.

While the Steering Committee represents the participants and maintains a higher-level view of the initiative, the Secretariat has many operational duties, from auditing applications for participation, to running the MDP, to developing and maintaining technical facilities for MANRS, such as the application system, the MANRS website and the Observatory.

This is the description of reality – that is how the roles of different entities are perceived today. And we believe it is mature enough to form a good foundation for the future growth of MANRS.

However, if you look at the current version of the MANRS Charter dated from September 2021, the document that is supposed to provide definitions of entities and their roles, you may see how much progress all of us have made to shape up the MANRS ecosystem to what it is today. Another important conclusion to make is that the Charter needs updating, and these updates are more profound than just replacing the name of the Internet Society with Global Cyber Alliance as the Secretariat.

The Charter review – the details

So let’s take a deeper dive into changes that may be needed to align the Charter with practical reality and ensure future healthy development of the initiative.

We’ll look at four major categories of changes in the Charter pertaining to:

• Governance, defining how decisions about the rules and the structure of the initiative are made and by whom. 
• Community Activities, defining who is responsible for proposing, developing, and coordinating various community activities, such as developing a program or reviewing Actions and conformance requirements.
• The MANRS Development Process, outlining roles various entities play in it.
• Audit and Participation, defining entities responsible for the tasks of onboarding new participants, conformance checks, suspension or termination of non-performing participants, and dispute resolution.

Figures 1 and 2 below provides a more detailed view of the potential changes along with the reasoning behind. The sign ☑️ represents the current responsibility, and ✅ the proposed responsibility.

Next Steps

As you can see, there is quite some work ahead of us to discuss and agree on the necessary changes to the Charter. The Secretariat, at the request of the Steering Committee, is preparing a proposal that could be presented to the community. Fortunately, now we have a tool – the MANRS Development Process – that allows us to conduct it in a transparent, inclusive and documented way. 

As our community continues to grow and evolve, staying informed and engaged is more important than ever. Your voice matters, and we look forward to building the future of our community—together.

The Secretariat intends to submit its proposal to the Steering Committee by 3 June, so if you haven’t already, be sure to join the MANRS-community mailing list to keep up with the latest proposals, discussions, and opportunities to get involved.