IETF News

Words from the Retiring IETF Chair

By: Brian Carpenter

Date: May 7, 2009

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photo of brian carpenter

IETF 68 was held in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, in a very modern and spacious Hilton hotel. We were hosted by NeuStar, with additional support from CZNIC and CESNET. Local loop was provided by Dial Telecom, and for the first time, the site network was subcontracted to VeriLAN Networks. As always, the success of the event was due largely to an outstanding team of dedicated volunteers. We had excellent wireless networking throughout the week. Approximately 1,200 people from 45 countries attended. The week featured the usual mix of working group meetings, BoF (birds-of-a-feather) sessions, research groups, and formal and informal side meetings.

It was especially interesting to hear from Jon Lindberg, vice president of Secretariat Services at NeuStar, about his company’s motivation for supporting the IETF.

“As technology becomes more advanced, and protocols become more sophisticated, and service offerings continue to become more and more robust, and end-user expectations continue to increase, NeuStar’s reliance on IETF standards is absolutely essential in order to be able to continue to deliver successful and unified solutions,” Jon said.

Since IETF 67, three new WGs were chartered and six WGs were closed, leaving approximately 120 WGs currently chartered. Between the meetings, the WGs and their individual contributors produced 441 new drafts, not to mention 1,020 updates. The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) approved 130 drafts for publication as RFCs, and the RFC publication queue was stable. The RFC Editor hit a new record by publishing 459 RFCs during 2006.

As I step down after two exciting and rewarding years as chair of the IETF, I’d like to thank all of the individuals who personally helped me do this job. I can easily identify well over 120 such people, and that’s without even counting the working group chairs and document authors who do so much to make the IETF productive. If we succeed, it’s in a spirit of open cooperation between hundreds of people. It remains only for me to wish every success to Russ Housley as he carries the work forward.

I look forward to seeing many of you in Chicago, 22-27 July 2007, and after that in Vancouver, Canada, 2-7 December 2007.

IETF 68 Facts and FiguresRegistered attendees: 1129
Countries: 45
New WGs: 3
Closed WGs: 6
New Internet-Drafts: 441
Updated Internet-Drafts: 1020
IETF Last Calls: 119
Approvals: 130RFC Editor Actions (11.2006 – 02. 2007)
95 RFC published of which

  • 58 standards track or BCP
  • 27 Informational or Experimental
  • 10 from other sources

IANA Actions (11.2006 – 02.2007)
Processed 1160 IETF-related requests of which:

  • 796 Private Enterprise Number requests
  • 81 port requests
  • 16 MIME-type requests

Reviewed 300 I-Ds in Last Call
or IESG Review