I think the best way to think about what 10 years from now will look like is to compare 10 years ago to the present: https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2011-April/thread.html

- BGP issues/hijacks: for sure, despite everyone's best efforts

- Jokes and fun stories: I sure hope so!

- Current events (and their impact on NetOps): Yep...

- Request for support form ISPs with a complete lack of quality frontline support: 100% guaranteed

- Questions about routing standards and associated practices (RRI, RPKI, etc.): Also for sure

- DNS problems: It's always DNS, so yes

- Vendor recommendation for ABC: Yes, new technologies means new players, old players either keep up or get replaced.

- Outages of network providers and popular online services: There will ALWAYS be outages, and we'll always break them down piece by piece for the operators to confirm, deny, or never comment.

- Popular vendor doing something bad and the community reacts: Also 100% guaranteed

- Big acquisitions: As long as money exits, things will be bought and sold, including companies, big and small.

- Staffing questions: Might decrease as automation goes up, but these still pop up

- How do I get IPv4: Beaten to death already; yes, will likely still be a thing (and associated discussions about IPv6)

- What device should I use for XYZ: Until moore's law hits a plateau, we'll always need better gear

You know, posts from 10 years ago, (and 20 years ago for that matter) don't seem a whole lot different than they are today with the obvious exception of the underlying technologies.

Tech that only exists in university labs today will start to see enterprise applications, smaller outfits will start to standardize technology that used to only be available to the big fish, and there will be all sorts of new hotness we're excited about on the horizon, just like 10 years ago...

We might be talking a lot more about PRKI as it becomes compulsory, maybe 400G transit links will start being standard across the industry. If we're lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) maybe a whole new routing protocol will be introduced and rapidly gain popularity.

I've joined the group within this past 10 years, and I sure am looking forward to 10 more years of learning, constructive discussion, and entertainment, hopefully in that order of occurrence.

Here's to 10 more, ya bunch of nerds,

-Matt

On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 1:42 PM Michael Thomas <mike@mtcc.com> wrote:

On 3/26/21 12:26 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:

If the last decade is anything to go by, I'm keen to see what the next one brings.

Mark.

So the obvious question is what will happen to the internet 10 years from now. The last 10 years were all about phones and apps, but that's pretty well played out by now. Gratuitously networked devices like my dishwasher will probably be common, but that's hardly exciting. LEO internet providers will be coming online which might make a difference in the corners of the world where it's hard to get access, but will it allow internet access to parachute in behind the Great Firewall?

One thing that we are seeing a revolution in is with working from home. That has some implications for networking since symmetric bandwidth, or at least quite a bit more upstream would be helpful as many people found out. Is latency going to drive networking, given gaming? Gamers are not just zitty 15 year olds, they are middle aged or older nowadays.

Mike