IETF News

News from the IETF Chair

By: Brian Carpenter, IETF Chair

Date: May 7, 2006

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brian carpenter

As you will surely know, even if you didn’t experience it, IETF 65 in Dallas got off to something of a wet start, with flooding up to, and inside, the hotel on Sunday afternoon and evening. Thanks and congratulations are due to the NOC crew for relocating the NOC equipment to get away from the waterfalls from the light fixtures, with only a few minutes’s interruption to DHCP service. Nevertheless, a total of 1264 participants from about 36 countries attended despite the weather, for a busy week of WG meetings, birds-of-a-feather sessions, plenaries, and many other meetings and discussions, as well as a fine social event. I want to thank Nokia, the principal host, and other sponsors for helping to make the meeting such a success.

Unfortunately, a serious problem was encountered by some participants in obtaining the necessary business visas in good time. The Internet Society made a welcome urgent intervention with the US State Department, allowing a few more visas to be issued at the last moment, but this problem is damaging to the IETF’s principle of openness.

In the year leading up to IETF 65, the IESG approved almost 400 Internet-Drafts for publication as RFCs, of which about half were Standards Track or Best Current Practice documents. During the same period, no fewer than 43 WGs completed their work and were closed down, and fourteen new ones were chartered, leaving more than 120 WGs in progress. Thus, the last year has been unusually productive for the IETF. Much of the credit for this, of course, belongs to the Area Directors, and in particular I want to recognise the work of the five who stepped down in Dallas:

  • Scott Hollenbeck (Applications)
  • Allison Mankin (Transport)
  • Margaret Wasserman (Internet)
  • Bert Wijnen (Operations and Management)
  • Alex Zinin (Routing)

However, the real credit for such a productive year belongs to the various WG Chairs, document authors, and individual participants, who did all that needed to be done to deliver the goods. Now we will all focus on continuing the work in preparation for IETF 66 in Montreal, Canada from July 9-14.

IETF 65 Facts and Figures

1264 registered attendees
from 36 countries

7 new WGs

18 WGs closed

531 new Internet-Drafts

995 updated Internet-Drafts

106 IETF Last Calls

150 approvals

around 184 published RFCs (96 standards and BCPs)

2 appeals