fig1.gif
housley.jpg
fellows.jpg
postel.jpg
falk.jpg
Table of Contents – Volume 4 Issue 3 (February 2009)
Full edition in PDF format
The Past Meets the Present at IETF 73
Evolution of the IP Model
Message from the IETF Chair
Words from the IAB Chair
IETF 73 Facts and Figures
Plenary Report
ISOC Fellows Attend IETF 73
Jonathan B. Postel Service Award Granted to EsLaRed
In Memory of Jon Postel
IPv4/IPv6 Coexistence and Transition
KENET: A Bandwidth Management Case Study
Revisiting Unwanted Traffic
Resource Certification
Recent IESG Document and Protocol Actions
IRTF Report
IETF 73 Acknowledgements and Interim Meetings
IETF Meeting Calendar
Glossary
Full edition in PDF format
The full edition is available here for download in PDF format (1.5MB).
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
The Past Meets the Present at IETF 73
From the Editor’s Desk, by Mirjam Kühne
View of Minneapolis, site of IETF 73. Photo by Peter Löthberg
Since it was first published some 30 years ago, the IP model has emerged as one of the most influential technological developments of our time. As it turns out, its evolution is also one of the more interesting stories in the history of the Internet. At IETF 73, Internet Architecture Board member Dave Thaler gave a well-received presentation called Evolution of the IP Model, which was based on an Internet-Draft published last November. An article based on the presentation, which Dave adapted specifically for the IETF Journal, appears on this page.
Jon Postel was remembered throughout the week, most notably at a private dinner in Minneapolis commemorating the 10-year passing of Jon and honouring this year’s winner of the Internet Society’s Jonathan B. Postel Service Award. Jon’s memory also was deeply felt during the Plenary, particularly when Dave, as part of his presentation, invoked Jon’s famous credo: Be con-servative in what you send; be liberal in what you receive. Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
Evolution of the IP Model
By Dave Thaler
Figure 1: The model exposed by IP to higher-layer protocols and applications
In the technical plenary, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) presented its work on the Evolution of the IP (Internet Protocol) model. For purposes of this work, the IP model refers to the service model exposed by the IP layer to upper-layer protocols and applications (figure 1). That is, the IP model can be viewed either as a set of behaviours that can be relied on by higher layers or as a set of expectations that higher layers have around IP. In this sense, it is similar to a loosely defined contract that has evolved over time. Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
Message from the IETF Chair
By Russ Housley
Russ Housley, IETF Chair
I am pleased to report that IETF 73, which was held in Minneapolis in November 2008, was a highly successful meeting. While the total number of attendees was down (937), the number of countries represented was up (52). Many people attribute the reduced attendance to the global economic down-turn. That may be true, yet the work of the IETF remains relevant, and the people who came were enthusiastic. Many working groups made significant progress in Minneapolis.
Google was the meeting host and certainly made everyone feel welcome. The social event was well attended, and everyone had a fun, game-filled evening. The site network was subcontracted to VeriLAN Networks, whose staff, working with a group of dedicated volunteers, provided a very sound network. Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
Words from the IAB Chair
By Olaf Kolkman
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) has a number of responsibilities, one of which is to maintain the relationships between the IETF and external organizations. RFC 2850 describes the process in the following manner:
The IAB acts as representative of the interests of the IETF and the Internet Society in technical liaison relationships with other organizations concerned with standards and other technical and organizational issues relevant to the world-wide Internet.”
Not completely coincidentally, these are the same words I used when I opened this column in the October 2007 issue of the IETF Journal. I was recently reminded of that role when Sha Zukan, undersecretary of the United Nations, invited the IETF and the IAB, through the Internet Society (ISOC), to provide an annual performance report on the steps the organization has taken toward “enhanced cooperation” on public policy issues pertaining to the Internet (PDF). Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
IETF 73 Facts and Figures
Registered attendees: 937
Countries: 52
New WGs: 2
Closed WGs: 5
WGs Chartered: 115
New Internet-Drafts: 389
Updated Internet-Drafts: 887
IETF Last Calls: 98
Approvals: 75
(July-October 2008) Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
Plenary Report
By Wendy Rickard
In a departure from its usual agenda, IETF 73 merged the administrative and technical plenaries into one session. Internet Architecture Board (IAB) chair Olaf Kolkman described the change as serving two purposes: One was an at-tempt to “try and open up more time in the agenda” and the other was to miti-gate some of the venue logistics associated with rearranging rooms for the plenaries. Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
ISOC Fellows Attend IETF 73
By Wendy Rickard
Internet Society Fellowship to the IETF fellows, mentors, and ISOC staff attend IETF 73 in Minneapolis.
Before IETF 73, Terry Rupeni had a relatively good understanding of the work being done by the IETF. What he couldn’t quite grasp was the work flow. After a few days, the mild-mannered engineer from Fiji was clearly in the flow, and he was becoming much more comfortable with the temperature, both inside and outside the hotel.
As a newcomer to the IETF, Terry’s trip to Minneapolis was made possible as part of the Internet Society (ISOC) Fellowship to the IETF programme. What did he think? “It’s a little cold,” he said of the city. The temperature inside was a different story. “It can get a little hot in there,” Terry said, referring to both the working-group meetings and the plenary sessions. “Here people go right up to the mic,” he said. “Where I come from, it’s not part of our culture to speak up in this manner. In Fiji, you don’t voice your opinion in public.” Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
Jonathan B. Postel Service Award Granted to EsLaRed
By Wendy Rickard
Lois Postel, Postel Award winner Ermanno Pietrosemoli, and ISOC president Lynn St. Amour at the Postel Service Award ceremony in Minneapolis in November 2008. Photo by Kevin Craemer
Internet Society president Lynn St. Amour announced at the IETF 73 plenary that Fundación Escuela Latinoamericana de Redes (EsLaRed) had been granted the coveted Jonathan B. Postel Service Award. It is the first time in the 10-year history of the award that it has been given to an organization rather than to an individual.
The 2008 award commemorates the 10-year passing of Internet pioneer Jonathan B. Postel, who is best known for being editor of the RFC series and for administering the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (see article, next page). A private dinner and award ceremony, which took place later in the week, was attended by Jon Postel’s brother, Russ Postel, and Jon’s mother, Lois Postel, who presented the award to EsLaRed president Ermanno Pietrosemoli. Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
In Memory of Jon Postel
By Wendy Rickard
“If the Net does have a god, he is probably Jon Postel.” – The Economist
Jon Postel. Photo by Peter Löthberg
Last October marked the 10-year anniversary of the passing of Internet engineer, standard-bearer, and icon Jon Postel. While Jon’s work contributed in countless ways to the advancement and smooth functioning of the Internet, it was his role as RFC editor-a role he created and held from April 7, 1969, until his untimely death on October 16, 1998-and his work with the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) that are of particular significance to the IETF community.
To those who knew him, Jon was a brilliant and astute engineer whose soft-spoken manner belied his dogged pursuit of excellence, a characteristic especially evident in his role as editor of the RFC document series. His feedback to authors was not confined to grammar and phrasing, for which he was a stickler; it included any potential inconsistencies, ambiguities, and duplications of effort. Jon’s longtime colleague Joyce Reynolds, wrote in RFC 2555 that while operating systems and computers have changed over the years, “Jon’s perseverance about the consistency of the RFC style and the quality of the documents remained true.” Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
IPv4/IPv6 Coexistence and Transition
By Fred Baker
This article in Japanese, translated by Miyata Tomoki
The Internet faces a transition from its traditional IPv4 to IPv6, with a period of coexistence. Here is one technologist’s view of the road ahead for the Internet Protocol and IP networks from the perspective of work happening in the IETF.
The time is rapidly approaching when the last of the IPv4 address space will be allocated. Even though options are being considered that would enable the trading of IPv4 address space as a commodity (which has important implications for routing) as well as for sliding an ISP interconnection layer underneath the IP protocol, networks requiring new address space in large amounts will deploy IPv6. Therefore, some form of coexistence and, eventually, a transition are inevitable. To that end, the IETF has explored several transition mechanisms, most of which are described in RFC 4213. Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
KENET: A Bandwidth Management Case Study
By Kevin Chege and Mat Ford
As part of ongoing efforts to better understand and respond to the variety of networking issues that can loosely be classed as stemming from bandwidth-intensive activities (see “The Internet and Bandwidth-Intensive Activities,” IETF Journal, Volume 4 Issue 2), the Internet Society invited Kevin Chege of the Kenya Education Network (KENET) to attend IETF 73 in Minneapolis. Kevin has considerable personal experience dealing with the impact that bandwidth-intensive applications can have on a relatively low-bandwidth region of the global network. Attending the IETF meeting allowed Kevin to share his perspective with the engineers working in the newly formed ALTO (Application-Layer Traffic Optimization) and LEDBAT (Low Extra Delay Background Transport) working groups (WGs) and to learn from them how these activities might help him in his work. Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
Revisiting Unwanted Traffic
By Leslie Daigle
In March 2006, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) held an invitational workshop to look at the problem of unwanted traffic. The official workshop report was published as RFC 4948, and a more complete discussion of the implications appears in an article by Elwyn Davies that was published in the IETF Journal in December 2007 (Volume 3, Issue 3). Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
Resource Certification
By Geoff Huston
Opinions vary as to what aspect of the Internet’s infrastructure represents the greatest common vulnerability to the security and safety of Internet users, but it is generally regarded that attacks that are directed at the network’s infrastructure are the most insidious, and in that case the choice is probably between the Domain Name System (DNS) and the inter-domain routing system. Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
Recent IESG Document and Protocol Actions
Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
IRTF Report
By Aaron Falk
Here are a few items on Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) developments since IETF 72:
The composition of the Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG) has been made public and can be seen at www.irtf.org/chair.
The document defining the IRTF publication stream has been finalized and is enqueued at the RFC Editor.
Four IRTF RFCs have been published since IETF 72. Three are from the Delay-Tolerant Networking Research Group (dtnrg) on Licklider Transmission Protocol (LTP), and one is from the Network Management Research Group on Simple Network Management Protocol measurements.
Draft-irtf-asrg-dnsbl (DNS Blacklists and Whitelists), which received substantial discussion on the IETF mailing list leading up to IETF 72, will be published as an IRTF RFC to document current practices. In response to the IETF list comments, it will include security considerations reflecting the IETF lastcall comments. Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
IETF 73 Acknowledgements and Interim Meetings
Many thanks to Google, Inc., and its staff, the VeriLAN Team, AMS, and the following volunteers for making IETF 73 a great success. Read more…
This article was posted on 23 February 2009
IETF Meeting Calendar
IETF 74
22-27 March 2009
Host: Juniper Networks
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
IETF 75
26-31 July 2009
Host: .SE
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
IETF 76
8-13 November 2009
Host: WIDE
Location: Hiroshima, Japan
IETF 77
21-26 March 2010
Host: TBD
Location: Anaheim, CA, USA
This article was posted on 23 February 2009