How many tiems have you participated in the IETF?
My first meeting was IETF 70, in December 2007 in Vancouver, which I attended in person. The most recent was IETF 120, also in Vancouver, also in person. Looking at the list of past meetings, I think I've missed about 7 of these, so I've been to about 44 meetings -- 5 virtual and 39 in person.
How is the IETF inperson atmosphere different from other meetings?
I've attended a couple APRICOT and APNIC meetings, two to three RIPE meetings, and a handful of JANOG meetings as well (an excellent way to see beautiful parts of the country!). My experience of these meetings is that they were primarily populated by network operators and, to a lesser extent, policy makers or policy influencers. This mix of folks, plus the sponsor booths (as you note), give the nature of hallway conversations a very operational problem-solving mindset that looks first at whatever operators might do on their own, without requiring collaboration with others. There are also many interesting presentations and discussions about real world problems that are not so simply solved by a single person or organization; often the proposed solutions seemed to take the form of feature requests of network equipment or operating system vendors, and sometimes the discussions proposed more serious protocol changes.
By contrast, my experience of IETF meetings is that while it is attended by a few operators there are many more implementers from across the spectrum of Internet technologies. If you want to discuss making systemic changes that impact and require broad interoperability, then you can find network equipment vendors, browser implementers, desktop/laptop and mobile operating system implementers -- all kinds of folks. A lot of crazy ideas can float around, many of which won't come to much, but big changes are still possible when working with the diversity of folks at the IETF.
After your first IETF meeting in 2007 what made you continue to come to the IETF?
If you'll indulge me, I'll give you an example that goes all the way back to my first in-person IETF. I went to IETF 70 to meet folks doing IPv6 and begin to understand how I might help Google (my employer at the time) add support for IPv6, especially to the public services. During the plenary session there was discussion about the lack of deployment of IPv6 and what might be done to help make progress. The Internet Area Director at the time, Mark Townsley, said: "how about we challenge Google to offer native IPv6 before the IETF they are hosting", which was IETF 73 in Minneapolis -- less than a year later. Sitting in the audience, I immediately emailed some fellow Googlers about this challenge and we agreed that we'd like to try, though none of us were in a position to make a public commitment on Google's behalf.
I found Mark after the plenary, introduced myself, and mentioned that some of us at Google were discussing maybe giving this a try. Then began lots of work within Google across several teams that allowed us to serve search queries on ipv6.google.com during the "IPv4 Outage Experiment" at IETF 71 in Philadelphia -- only 3 months after Mark's comment at the plenary. In addition to attending IETF meetings, Google held IPv6 Implementers Conferences in 2008, 2009, and 2010 -- attended by many IETF colleagues. At the very last session of the 2010 conference an idea was floated that would become World IPv6 Day, which led to World IPv6 Launch.
All along the way, many conversations with IETF colleagues -- both in working groups and in the hallways -- were essential to the progress. The work continued from there, for example the development and standardization of 464xlat which involved mobile OS vendors, network equipment vendors, and operators. And it still continues, more than a decade and a half later, as deployment models evolve and interoperability across the Internet ecosystem is needed as we continue to explore IPv6 possibilities.
(I will say, though, that the RIR and JANOG social events were always much more interesting!)
Is there something you keep in mind specifically as a Area Director at onsite IETF meetings?
For me, the main focus as an Area Director during a conference is on making sure I do my part to help everyone have a successful meeting, trying to support one of the IETF's stated core values about "why we meet":
Why we meet:
We meet to pursue the IETF's mission [RFC3935]. This is partly done by advancing the development of Internet-Drafts and RFCs. We also seek to facilitate attendee participation in multiple topics and to enable cross-pollination of ideas and technologies.
First this means attending the sessions of all working groups for which I'm responsible, helping to address any issues the group or its chairs might need help with. This can also mean attending sessions of working groups where there might be some controversy or overlap with work in one of my working groups.
There are also lots of hallways conversations and INT AD Office Hours, where I try to help folks with document concerns or discuss how new work might get started. This often involves making introductions or references to other IETF colleagues whose expertise might be helpful. I am not a nature extrovert, but I do know friends and colleagues from over the years who each know many other IETFers, and I rely on their help a lot.
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How I know Eric
During my first IETF meeting at IETF115 London, after the eMPF Bof meeting Eric and Lorenzo took me to a pub in London for a #NetLdn meeting. Lorenzo and Eric were very nice to me during the IETF not only because I was interested in IPv6, but also because they live/lived in Japan for a long time. Eric has been very nice to me for my following IETF meetings and has checked up on me on my drafts and how I was doing. Because Eric has lived in Japan from 2011 to 2018 and knows a lot of network engineers in Japan it was very interesting to hear stories about Japan from him at the IETF.
