Re: bring sense to the ietf - volunteer for nomcom
On Mon, 04 September 2000, smd@clock.org wrote:
The other alternative is to maintain a running P.R. war between the I* organization which is simply wrong, and those of us who have to explain to our investors why they are wrong. That takes work too.
I think its great some organizations allow/encourage its employees to participate in activites such as the IETF. However, there is a postive feedback loop. What is the return on investment of an operator sending folks to the IETF? Most major operators already get private presentations and submit individual requirements to the vendors to incorporate in their products. If UUNET needs some operational feature in a protocol, they call up their Cisco engineer and say jump. Presto, in the next release train, feature X shows up. Who needs rough consensus? I think the IETF is valuable, but what do you tell investors when they ask what's in it for them?
* Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> [20000905 00:27]:
I think its great some organizations allow/encourage its employees to participate in activites such as the IETF. However, there is a postive feedback loop. What is the return on investment of an operator sending folks to the IETF? Most major operators already get private presentations and submit individual requirements to the vendors to incorporate in their products. If UUNET needs some operational feature in a protocol, they
^^^^^^^
call up their Cisco engineer and say jump. Presto, in the next release train, feature X shows up. Who needs rough consensus?
I think the IETF is valuable, but what do you tell investors when they ask what's in it for them?
Last I checked the IETF invents the protocols, not the features. :-) *We* demand open standards. The IETF isn't perfect and some things certainly could use some change. The fact remains that the IETF is still the most effective at developing standards for the Internet community. If you participate in IETF meetings just to get features added to a protocol, you're not taking full advantage, IMO. You don't have to physically go to the meetings anyway; The real IETF work happens on the various e-mail lists. Sure, reading them costs you (or your organization) time. A precious resource indeed but the tradeoff of such a precious resource can sometimes bring you something much more valuable-- something you didn't know you needed to begin with. A new business model; A new network design; A new employee. :-) In summary: A new way of looking at something. Time is money, sometimes time well spent can mean more of the other. :-) In today's marketplace, where a good idea can blow another (once) good idea out of the water, can you afford to not take advantage of every opportunity you get to discover new ideas? Oh, and the IETF has got to be one of the cheapest (financially) conferences to attend anyhow. What was the last conference you attended that was not >= $995--just to get in the door? I'm not sure I buy the "real operators don't have time to do these sorts of things" idea. I've certainly worked and felt at times that there's no way that I'd have time for anything else, but that is the short-sighed way of thinking when it gets imprinted in your brain and always used as an excuse. Q: The benefit to shareholders (if I was asked)? A: *Your* network architects, engineers, operators, product managers, and researchers get to communicate with and discover knowledge and ideas with lots of other architects, engineers, operators, product managers, and researchers. Would you like our company to miss out on that wealth of knowledge? (And that is to say nothing of the morale gained in allowing your employees to meet with their peers.) -jr The opinions above actually *are* my employers, because *I* am my employer. Oh, but the grammatical errors are my own. :) ---- Josh Richards [JTR38/JR539-ARIN] <jrichard@cubicle.net/fix.net/freedom.gen.ca.us/geekresearch.com> Geek Research LLC - <URL:http://www.geekresearch.com/> IP Network Engineering and Consulting
In message <20000905074726.29598.cpmta@c004.sfo.cp.net>, Sean Donelan writes:
I think the IETF is valuable, but what do you tell investors when they ask what's in it for them?
Various folks make various arguments but I think the most successful one has been: * The IETF makes the standards (for good or ill) and the quality of those standards, and, indeed, the decision about what to standardize has an impact on operations. By attending, you can help avoid disasterous standards and help shape useful ones. * IETF is one of the better ways for groups of vendors together to influence standards (more powerful than one on one meetings). That said, you also need to be clear you don't attend unnecessarily. Don't go for the whole week -- go for the meetings you need (so book the hotel for the week, and then when you see the program of meetings, alter your reservation). Don't send a lot of people. Send a junior person if senior participation is needed. Craig [Side note: I was a founding member of the IESG at a time that I was providing technical & user support for NSFNET.]
* The IETF makes the standards (for good or ill) and the quality of those standards, and, indeed, the decision about what to standardize has an impact on operations. By attending, you can help avoid disasterous standards and help shape useful ones.
my candidate of the season is rfc 2547,mpls vpns. consider what it will do to your bgp table and the load on the PEs when you have say 100k vpns. and we have customers who want over 1k vpns each. makes you love ipsec, eh? the ietf *really* needs more operator participation. and it is the operators who will pay the long term penalties for not participating, in both overly complex equipment and in labor compensating for overly complex or jus plain bad designs. randy
Sean;
I think the IETF is valuable, but what do you tell investors when they ask what's in it for them?
You have no problem, because it is as good as ISO. Moverover, within NANOG context, it is better than ISO, because it is US-centric that 2 of 3 meetings in a year is held in US (remaining one often in CA).
If UUNET needs some operational feature in a protocol, they call up their Cisco engineer and say jump. Presto, in the next release train, feature X shows up. Who needs rough consensus?
Then, no one. In theory, internet/routing areas are the only area where so valued rough consensus and interoperability could be meaningful. Physical/datalink layer protocols are purely local. Transport/application layer protocols are chosen by the market, because of the end to end principle, Masataka Ohta
on 09/05/2000 7:37 AM, Masataka Ohta at mohta@necom830.hpcl.titech.ac.jp wrote:
Sean;
I think the IETF is valuable, but what do you tell investors when they ask what's in it for them?
You have no problem, because it is as good as ISO.
Moverover, within NANOG context, it is better than ISO, because it is US-centric that 2 of 3 meetings in a year is held in US (remaining one often in CA).
If UUNET needs some operational feature in a protocol, they call up their Cisco engineer and say jump. Presto, in the next release train, feature X shows up. Who needs rough consensus?
Then, no one.
In theory, internet/routing areas are the only area where so valued rough consensus and interoperability could be meaningful.
Physical/datalink layer protocols are purely local. Transport/application layer protocols are chosen by the market, because of the end to end principle,
My comment for all these points: 1. The cost of deployment, management and increasing complexity suggest that common standards will reduce cost of operations for ISPs - why the investors should be interested. They will say that the cost of the equipment is only a fraction of the total cost of ownership with human labor being an increasing component. 2. It is true the ISPs and large customers have always had leverage with various vendors - a good thing. A side effect is that this tends to divide the market and hamper interoperability and management. Even when the market is dominated by a few or just two vendors, there is division. If one is dominant the others are at a disadvantage leading to one force that is hard to steer even by large customers. If, on the other hand, standards are well crafted with informed input by all parties; vendors, users and other technologists, the result will be better and operational costs will be reduced. BTW, physical and datalink protocols are no longer purely local. Long haul standards for various optical techniques are important unless one wants to build a network out of only one vendors equipment. /jon
participants (6)
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Craig Partridge -
Jon Saperia -
Josh Richards -
Masataka Ohta -
Randy Bush -
Sean Donelan