IETF Areas

The area structure is defined by the IESG, and the IESG can add areas, redefine areas, merge areas, change the number of Area Directors (ADs) assigned to an area, or close down areas. Changes to the area structure affect the IETF in many ways; decisions to change the area structure are taken in consultation with the community. When changing the area structure, the IESG can decide which members are responsible for new and changed areas, including making one sitting AD responsible for multiple areas, but the IESG can only add new members through the Nominating Committee process.

The primary task of area management is handled by one, two, or three Area Directors per area. An AD may be advised by one or more directorates, which are created, selected, chaired and if necessary disbanded by the AD. Directorates may be specific to an area, specific to a technology, or chartered in some other fashion.

The ADs for an area are jointly responsible for making sure the WGs in the area are well coordinated, that there is coverage for the technologies needed in the area, and that the challenges most important to the Internet in that area are indeed being worked on. A full list of active working groups, sorted by area, may be found at the IETF Datatracker.

The IESG decides which areas working groups belong to. The charter of each Area is listed below. For more information about the role of the IESG in areas and working groups, please see RFC 3710 ("An IESG charter"), section 6 and RFC 2418 ("IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures").

Applications and Real-Time Area (art)

The ART area develops application protocols and architectures in the IETF. The work in the area falls into roughly three categories, with blurry distinctions between them. One category consists of protocols and architectures specifically designed to support delay-sensitive interpersonal communications via voice, video, instant messaging, presence, and other means, otherwise known as "real-time" applications and services. A second category consists of protocols and architectures to support applications that may be more tolerant of delay, email, and FTP. The third category consists of building blocks that are designed for use across a wide variety of applications and may be employed by both real-time and non-real-time applications, such as URI schemes, MIME types, authentication mechanisms, data formats, metrics, and codecs.

General Area (gen)

The General Area consists of a few IETF WGs and other activities focused on supporting, updating and maintaining the IETF standards development process. As General AD, the IETF Chair manages the General Area Review Team (Gen-ART) and other IETF-wide directorates.

Internet Area (int)

The primary technical topics covered by the Internet Area include IP layer (both IPv4 and IPv6), implications of IPv4 address depletion, co-existence between the IP versions, DNS, DHCP, host and router configuration, mobility, multihoming, identifier-locator separation, VPNs and pseudowires along with related MPLS issues, and various link layer technologies. The Internet Area is also responsible for specifying how IP will run over new link layer protocols. Learn more from this Internet Area introduction tutorial presented at a recent IETF meeting.

Operations and Management Area (ops)

The primary technical areas covered by the Operations & Management (OPS) Area include: Network Management, AAA, and various operational issues facing the Internet such as DNS operations, IPv6 operations, operational security and Routing operations.

Unlike most IETF areas, the Operations & Management area is logically divided into two separate functions: Network Management and Operations.

The Network Management function covers Internet management and AAA, and the related protocols, including but not limited to NETCONF, SNMP, RADIUS, Diameter, and CAPWAP, and of data modeling and data modeling languages used in management such as SMI and YANG. Another important role of the Management function is to identify potential or actual management issues regarding IETF protocols and documents in all areas, and to work with the other areas to resolve those issues.

The Operations function is largely responsible for soliciting operator feedback and input regarding IETF work. Another important role of the Operations function is to identify potential or actual operational issues regarding IETF protocols and documents in all areas, and to work with the other areas to resolve those issues.

The OPS area intersects most often with the Routing, Internet and Security areas. 

Routing Area (rtg)

The Routing Area is responsible for facilitating the operation of the Internet routing system by maintaining and improving the scalability and stability characteristics of the existing routing protocols and developing new protocols, extensions, and bug fixes. Forwarding methods (such as destination-based unicast and multicast forwarding, MPLS, and pseudowire) as well as associated routing and signaling protocols (such as OSPF, IS-IS, BGP, RSVP-TE, LDP, PIM, RPL, and VPNs at Layer 2 and Layer 3), and both centralized and distributed routing architectures (to address, for example, virtualization, service chaining, traffic engineering, and data center routing) are within the scope of the Routing Area. The interactions of routing systems with configuration and orchestration platforms (for example, routing-related YANG models and path computation engines) are handled in the Routing Area as well. 

The Routing Area also works on Generalized MPLS used in the control plane of optical networks, and the security and manageability aspects of the routing system. The Routing Area Working Groups cover a wide range of data plane technologies (Layer 1, Layer 2, Layer 3) and control protocols. 

The Routing Area intersects most frequently with the Internet Area, the Operations and Management Area, and the Security Area. Interaction with the Internet Area concentrates mainly on IP forwarding and encapsulation. Ongoing work with the Operations and Management Area is on developing YANG models and considering the management and operation of the routing infrastructure. With the Security Area, the ongoing focus is on routing protocol security and its impact on the Internet's infrastructure security.

Work in the Routing Area often overlaps with work in other standards development organizations (SDOs). In particular, there have been interactions with Broadband Forum, IEEE, and ITU-T.

Security Area (sec)

The Security Area is the home for working groups focused on security protocols. They provide one or more of the security services: integrity, authentication, non-repudiation, confidentiality, and access control. Since many of the security mechanisms needed to provide these security services employ cryptography, key management is also vital.

The Security Area intersects with all other IETF Areas, and the participants are frequently involved with activities in the working groups from other areas. This involvement focuses upon practical application of Security Area protocols and technologies to the protocols of other Areas.

Web and Internet Transport (wit)

The Web and Internet Transport (wit) area covers protocols that provide the functions of the Transport Layer of the Internet, such as QUIC, TCP, UDP, SCTP, and DCCP, including congestion control and queue management. It also has responsibility for protocols that implement the World Wide Web (like HTTP) and adjacent technologies.