The Internet is a set of interacting autonomous systems (AS) belonging to different organizations. A certain number of IP addresses 4 and/or 6 versions (IPv4, IPv6) is assigned to each autonomous system. The allocation of IP addresses is regulated by the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). To ensure the correct routing of traffic on the Internet, each owner of an autonomous system must promptly make changes to the records of the RIR database that reflect its routing policy.

The largest regional Internet registries are:

RIR	Регион
RIPE NCC	Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East
ARIN	North America and some Caribbean countries
APNIC	East Asia and Pacific
LACNIC	Latin America and most of the Caribbean countries
AFRINIC	Africa