10 Days to IETF 92

On our previous visit in 2006 we had a very productive meeting, and a flood surrounding the hotel area. I am hoping for a dry meeting this time. But of course the topics we will be discussing are far from dry, there are many exciting discussions coming up. More on those in a moment.

But first I wanted to thank Google, our host, and Time Warner Cable, our connectivity sponsor. Without you we could not organise these meetings. Thank you. Also, if you have not yet registered, this is a good time to do so! The early bird registration fees are still available until tomorrow (March 13).

For me the most interesting discussion topics at the IETF at this time are:

• Code. Running code. It has always been important for the IETF, but this time we are focusing even more on this. A Hackathon on Saturday and Sunday allows participants to work on the technologies that they are interested in. This event is sponsored by Cisco – Thank you!
• Another code-related effort, CodeMatch, is in development and aims to create better connections between the IETF and open source communities while providing an easy entry point for students and regionally diverse participants into the IETF. Learn more about this at the Wednesday plenary update and prototype demo, or come help test the UI near the registration desk on Sunday.
• The IAB technical plenary will focus on smart objects, the Internet of Things, and what they mean for the Internet architecture. Dave Thaler and Hannes Tschofenig will lead the discussion.
• And on the same topic, the Thing-to-Thing Research Group will be meeting on Saturday and Sunday before the IETF.
• The industry needs to be able to administer and control network nodes in a centralised, vendor-independent fashion in large networks, and these needs are materialising as an increasing number of YANG data model proposals at the IETF. If you are interested in this, the YANG advise and editing session on Sunday will help you participate this work better.
• The LUCID BOF will focus on how we can solve the recently highlighted problems around internationalised domain names and Unicode. The BOF takes place on Wednesday.
• Also on Wednesday, the ACME BOF will talk about ways to automate certificate provisioning.
• Wednesday seems to be the day of the BOF meetings, as the exciting SPUD BOF will also take place then. The recent IAB workshop on Stack Evolution in a Middlebox Internet (SEMI) discussed the creation of a mechanism for applications at the end as well as boxes along the path to explicitly declare their assumptions and intentions, making it easier to manage traffic flows. The evolution of transport protocols is also discussed at the TSVAREA meeting, which includes short talks on the SEMI workshop, SPUD BOF, and on another SEMI-derived effort called HOPS. This effort asks “How Ossified is the Protocol Stack?” and intends to measure middle boxes to better understand what we’re dealing with.
• And of course, our big projects around improving the security and privacy of the Internet, the evolution of the web protocols, real-time communication in the browsers, and many others are actively discussed throughout the week.

We will also have an exciting social event at the Reunion Tower on Tuesday. And on Saturday, a Code Sprint to work on the tools that let the IETF community produce and handle standards. Please contribute with your expertise and interest! The Bits-n-Bites event is on again, after a small break. I want to thank the sponsors of this Thursday-evening event, Huawei, Comcast, Verisign, and A10 Networks. 

Also, during the IETF week, students from the Elon University will be asking for your help in their “Imagining the Internet” project. You can help by letting them interview you about the state of the Internet, the most important emerging trends and the best actions to take in future to ensure a bright tomorrow.

The full agenda of the meeting is here. And if you are new to the IETF, do check out the information for newcomers, and in particular the education team’s program on Sunday, online tutorials, and the mentoring program that helps you get better connected with other people at the IETF.

Looking forward to seeing you all soon in Texas!