IETF Proceedings

IETF 79 Proceedings

Introduction | Area, Working Goup & BoF Reports | Plenaries | Training | Internet Research Task Force

IETF Overview

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) provides a forum for working groups to coordinate technical development of new protocols. Its most important function is the development and selection of standards within the Internet protocol suite.

The IETF began in January 1986 as a forum for technical coordination by contractors for the then US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), working on the ARPANET, US Defense Data Network (DDN), and the Internet core gateway system. Since that time, the IETF has grown into a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet.

The IETF mission includes:

Identifying and proposing solutions to pressing operational and technical problems in the Internet
Specifying the development or usage of protocols and the near-term architecture, to solve technical problems for the Internet
Facilitating technology transfer from the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) to the wider Internet community;and
Providing a forum for the exchange of relevant information within the Internet community between vendors, users, researchers, agency contractors, and network managers.

Technical activities in the IETF are addressed within working groups. All working groups are organized roughly by function into seven areas. Each area is led by one or more Area Directors who have primary responsibility for that one area of IETF activity. Together with the Chair of the IETF/IESG, these Area Directors comprise the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).

Name	Area	Email
Russ Housley	IETF Chair	chair@ietf.org
Jari Arkko	Internet	jari.arkko@piuha.net
Ron Bonica	Operations and Management	rbonica@juniper.net
Stewart Bryant	Routing	stbryant@cisco.com
Gonzalo Camarillo	Real-time Applications and Infrastructure	gonzalo.camarillo@ericsson.com
Ralph Droms	Internet	rdroms.ietf@gmail.com
Wesley Eddy	Transport	wes@mti-systems.com
Adrian Farrel	Routing	adrian@olddog.co.uk
Stephen Farrell	Security	stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie
David Harrington		ietfdbh@comcast.net
Pete Resnick	Applications	presnick@qualcomm.com
Dan Romascanu	Operations and Management	dromasca@avaya.com
Peter Saint-Andre	Applications	stpeter@stpeter.im
Robert Sparks	Real-time Applications and Infrastructure	rjsparks@nostrum.com
Sean Turner	Security	turners@ieca.com

Liaison and ex-officio members include:

Olaf Kolkman	IAB Chair	iab-chair@iab.org
Danny McPherson	IAB Liaison	loa@pi.nu
Michelle Cotton	IANA Liaison	iana@iana.org
Sandy Ginoza	RFC Editor Liaison	rfc-editor@rfc-editor.org
Alexa Morris	IETF Secretariat Liaison	exec-director@ietf.org

The IETF has a Secretariat, which is managed by Association Management Solutions, LLC (AMS) in Fremont, California.The IETF Executive Director is Alexa Morris (exec-director@ietf.org).

Other personnel that provide full-time support to the Secretariat include:

Senior Meeting Planner	Marcia Beaulieu
Meeting Coordinator	Wanda Lo
Meeting Registrar	Stephanie McCammon
Project Manager	Cindy Morgan
Project Manager	Amy Vezza

To contact the Secretariat, please refer to the addresses and URLs provided on the IETF Secretariat Web page.

The IETF also has a general Administrative Support Activity headed by the IETF Administrative Director, Ray Pelletier iad@ietf.org

The working groups conduct their business during the tri-annual IETF meetings, at interim working group meetings, and via electronic mail on mailing lists established for each group. The tri-annual IETF meetings are 4.5 days in duration, and consist of working group sessions, training sessions, and plenary sessions. The plenary sessions include technical presentations, status reports, and an open IESG meeting.

Following each meeting, the IETF Secretariat publishes meeting proceedings, which contain reports from all of the groups that met, as well as presentation slides, where available. The proceedings also include a summary of the standards-related activities that took place since the previous IETF meeting.

Meeting minutes, working group charters (including information about the working group mailing lists), and general information on current IETF activities are available on the IETF Web site at http://www.ietf.org.