Internet DRAFT - draft-daigle-iasa-retrospective
draft-daigle-iasa-retrospective
Network Working Group L. Daigle
Internet-Draft Thinking Cat Enterprises LLC
Intended status: Informational June 5, 2017
Expires: December 7, 2017
After the first decade: IASA Retrospective
draft-daigle-iasa-retrospective-01
Abstract
The IETF Administrative Support Activity was formally established and
undertaken as a project of the Internet Society in 2005. In the
following 10+ years, the IETF has grown and changed, as have the
responsibilities that fall to the IASA.
This document reflects on some of those changes and the implications
within the IASA structure, providing some areas for further
discussion to consider evolving the IASA and the IETF/ISOC
relationship.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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This Internet-Draft will expire on December 7, 2017.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Forming the IASA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Evolution of IASA breadth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. IASA coverage in 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. IASA coverage in 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Evolution of Internet Society Partnership . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Issues and Potential Next Steps for the IASA structure . . . 9
6. Closing remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1. Introduction
In April 2005, BCP 101 ([RFC4071]) was published, formally creating
the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA). At the end of an
intense community discussion, the IASA was formed as an activity
housed within the Internet Society (ISOC), and BCP 101 defined the
roles of the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC), and the
IETF Administrative Director (IAD). Together, these roles have
defined responsibilities for IETF's fiscal and administrative
support.
With the newly established IASA, the IETF was in a position to
formalize several activities that had been undertaken by other
organizations, on behalf of the IETF. This allowed the IETF take
responsibility of those operations. Through the 10+ years since the
inception of IASA, the operations and responsibilities have, however,
grown and requirements have evolved. Nor has the world stood still
-- at the same time, the Internet Society has grown and taken on a
broader role in Internet governance discussions and global
activities.
This document reflects on some of those changes and the implications
within the IASA structure, providing some areas for further
discussion to consider evolvingthe IASA and the IETF/ISOC
relationship.
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2. Forming the IASA
In 2003, the IETF and IAB Chairs formed an IAB Advisory Committee
(AdvComm) to "review the existing IETF administration relationships
(RFC Editor, IETF Secretariat, etc.) and propose IETF management
process or structural changes that would improve the overall
functioning of the IETF" ([RFC3716]). The AdvComm identified several
stressors to the efficient and effective operation of the IETF
related to financial support, informality of relationships, and
opaqueness of decision making in administrative matters.
To address the identified stressors, the AdvComm developed a set of
requirements for any eventual solution:
o Resource Management
* Uniform Budgetary Responsibility (autonomy)
* Revenue Source Equivalence (ability to consider all sources of
income and apply them as appropriate across all functions,
which was not possible when the Internet Society was funding
the RFC Editor function and CNRI/Foretec was supporting the
Secretariat function
* Clarity in Relationship with Supporting Organizations (clear
contractual relationships between the IETF and each supporting
organization)
* Flexibility in Service Provisioning (ability to make choices)
* Administrative Efficiency (avoiding duplicate overhead across
multiple organizations)
o Stewardship (looking after the future as well as the present)
* Accountability for Change (i.e., accountability to the IETF
community)
* Persistence and Accessibility of Records
o Working Environment
* Service Automation (for administrative tasks and IETF
information flow management)
* Tools (development of more tools for IETF support)
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The IETF followed up the AdvComm recommendations with discussions of
possible administrative structures to support the IETF and ensure its
continued ability to focus on its mission of making the Internet work
better. The eventual result was the IETF Administrative Support
Activity (IASA), defined in BCP101 ([RFC4071]) and formed in 2005.
The selected form of the IASA (as "an activity of the Internet
Society") meant that the IETF could focus on building out the pieces
of administration necessary to carry out its standards activities,
without having to instantly build general corporate overhead. That
is, the Internet Society was specifically tasked with providing any
additional needed clerical or financial support, and was identified
as solely responsible for obtaining sponsors for the IETF. The
latter also was intended to provide arms-length distance between
corporate donors and direction of the IETF's activities: the IETF
could not be "bought".
3. Evolution of IASA breadth
3.1. IASA coverage in 2005
In order to understand the evolution of the IASA, it is important to
describe the baseline -- what the IASA was when it was first formed.
o Secretariat -- the IETF Secretariat function was carried out by an
organization that had been a subsidiary of CNRI (which had
collected meeting fees and provided Secretariat services until the
creation of the IASA). In 2005, key personnel migrated to Neustar
to carry out the Secretariat function under contract with the
Internet Society (for IASA). This gave the IETF full control and
responsibility for picking meeting locations, as well as setting
and collecting meeting fees.
o Meeting planning -- A first priority was to establish meeting
dates, locations and contracts more than a year in advance, to
improve contract negotiating positions, costs, and provide clarity
for attendee planning. (Historical data point: the early 2004
Seoul IETF meeting did not have a hotel contract booked in
December of 2003).
o RFC Editor -- The RFC Editor function had been handled at USC/ISI
for many years (since Jon Postel moved to USC/ISI from UCLA in
1978). In the years leading up to the formation of the IASA, The
Internet Society had provided funding to ISI in the form of a
contract to carry out the work. With the creation of the IASA,
this contract was folded into the ISOC/IASA support. See
[RFC5540] for more details.
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o IANA -- by the time the IASA was created in 2005, ICANN was well-
established and had been carrying out the Internet Assigned Names
Activity since 1998. The IETF had agreed on a Memorandum of
Understanding with ICANN on the handling of protocol parameters
for IETF standards ([RFC2860]), but it did not specify levels of
service or practical terms of agreement. (See more IANA detail at
http://www.internetsociety.org/ianatimeline ).
o Tools -- the Secretariat had developers on staff who had built
tools to support the workflow of the IETF (e.g., liaison manager).
The software was proprietary, and IETF community programmers had
no access or insight. At the same time, the IETF community being
what it is, there were community-driven tools that were built up
in an open source fashion. These were completely separate and
separately maintained.
o Meeting network support -- in 2005, standard meeting hosting
agreements included providing network connectivity to the meeting
hotel. This might have extended to include a terminal room for
attendees.
o Staff -- the IASA established that the IETF would have one full-
time employee (officially an employee of ISOC, as part of the
administrative arrangements). That one employee was the IETF
Administrative Director.
o The IAOC -- established as an administrative oversight body, the
IAOC was established with 3 voting and one non-voting ex officio
members (IETF Chair, IAB Chair, ISOC CEO and IAD, respectively),
one member appointed by the ISOC Board, and 4 appointees from the
community (2 from NomCom, 1 each appointed by the IESG and IAB).
3.2. IASA coverage in 2017
A little more than a decade later, things have changed substantially
in terms of the coverage of the responsibilities of the IASA.
o Secretariat -- the IASA put the Secretariat contract out for
competitive bid in 2007, establishing a contract with professional
association management company (Association Management Services)
in 2008, with key personnel moving to AMS.
o Meeting planning -- IETF meeting locations are now mostly
contracted two to three years in advance. At the same time, IETF
leadership and participants' expectations of meeting locations and
venues have evolved. The IETF now aims to meet regularly in Asia,
as well as Europe and North America. Meeting layout requirements
have evolved. The topic is sufficiently complex that the MTGVENUE
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working group was created in 2016 to develop an IETF consensus
document on meeting venue requirements.
o RFC Editor -- the IAB split the RFC Editor function into separate
functions and these have been contracted out -- RFC Series Editor;
RFC Production, Independent Series Editor. These are collectively
overseen by an IAB-based, community-populated advisory board
(RSOC). The RFC Series continues to grow in terms of number of
documents published, and new features (e.g., ISSNs) and other
formats supported for the documents. (N.B.: The IASA is not
responsible for defining or driving any of that growth -- the IASA
role is limited to writing and managing the contracts for the work
defined by the IAB and RSOC).
o IETF Trust -- the IETF Trust was formed to hold IETF-related IPR
(marks, copyright, domain name registrations) after the IASA was
established. It was created in late 2005, by agreement between
the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) and the
Internet Society (ISOC) as the Settlors, the IETF and the initial
trustees (IAOC members at the time). One provision of the Trust
Agreement was that, prior to July 1, 2010, the Trust could be
amended only by unanimous written consent of both the Settlors and
two-thirds of the Trustees. The Trust Agreement includes a list
of the initial assets contributed to the Trust, and they generally
included the IETF and IETF SECRETARIAT marks, relevant domain
names, and the content of the databases used to do the IETF's work
(including then-current Internet-Drafts). RFC 4371 ([RFC4371])
updated RFC 4071 (BCP 101) to reflect the fact that there would be
an IETF Trust to hold the rights to IETF-relevant intellectual
property. Additionally, RFC 4748 updated RFC 3798 (the first
organization of IETF rights in contributions), and that RFC was
updated by RFC 5378 ([RFC5378]) to unify the IETF rights
definitions and Trust structure.
o IANA -- the IETF Trust holds the IANA IPR (IANA trademark and
iana.org and related domain name registrations). We now formally
contract with ICANN to do the work (which is an update over the
SLA that was established in the intervening decade)
o Tools -- the IETF's software tools are still a mix of things
developed spontaneously by community members and specific work put
out for hire. The latter is now handled through RFPs, and care is
made to ensure that tools upon which the community is dependent
can be maintained and supported for as long as needed.
o Meeting network support -- network support for IETF meetings has
grown in scope and expectation of uniformity of services in
meetings across the globe. This now encompasses a large scale
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combination of NOC volunteers, hired support, in-kind donations of
equipment and specialized support for remote participation. The
following list of current meeting network support expectations
highlights not only the complexity of the support, but also the
increased issues in funding, contract management, and implications
for hotel contracts that land on the IASA plate:
* Support for pre/post events (ISOC BOT, Hackathon, etc.)
* Ubiquitous wireless with multiple SSIDS
* Hotel wireless with IETF SSIDs -- sometimes multiple venues
* V6 enabled throughout
* Increasing remote participation support
* Support for experiments
* Bits and Bites
* Core network management (ASN/ip addresses/DNS/monitoring/etc.)
* Storage, management and shipping of IETF-owned equipment (in-
kind donations)
o Comms -- Beyond simply having a reliable website, the IETF's use
of "communications" has extended in recent years. This ranges
from updates in the website itself, to work with social and
industry media and messaging to position the IETF in relevant
global discussions. Of late, the IETF has used the services of
ISOC's professional communications staff, helping deal with some
of the publicly visible issues such as the impacts of surveillance
revelations or the IANA transition. Starting from 2017, this
support is for the first time part of the IETF budget, whereas
previously the activity and its funding not visible at that level
o Sponsorship and funding -- even as the IETF retains its basic
operational structure, the industry around it changes. The last
decade has seen increased costs of meetings and productions, and a
greater reliance on corporate funding. Where once the IETF relied
on individual community members convincing their companies to step
up for the next meeting, the IETF now plans its meetings several
years in advance and needs to align funding expectations
accordingly. It takes expertise to update funding models, build
and implement programs for securing industry sponsorship. BCP 101
formally identifies that the IETF is not to fundraise on its own;
indeed, the IASA is not responsible for the sponsorship
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development (just managing its impact on the IASA budget). The
IETF sponsorship models have evolved, and in 2017 they consist of
ISOC memberships, the Global Host program, meeting hosts and other
meeting sponsors, the Hackathon and Bits-n-Bites sponsorships, and
the IETF Endowment. The team helping with sponsors involves a
primary sponsorship person at ISOC, the IAD, the Secretariat, as
well as frequent help from the IETF leadership and their
connections.
o Staff -- the IASA still has exactly one permanent employee -- the
IETF Administrative Director.
o IAOC -- the structure of the IAOC remains unchanged since the
IASA's inception.
o IAOC Committees -- recognizing the need for more eyes and
specialized attention for different branches of work requiring
IAOC oversight, the IAOC expanded its support by creating
committees. Committees are dynamic -- formed and closed as needed
to focus on key areas of the moment, and often include members
from outside the IAOC. The committees do the heavy lifting on
background work for IAOC decisions. The IAOC is nonetheless
responsible for its decisions based on committee output and
recommendations. Example committees include:
* Finance Committee: reviews financial reports prepared by the
IAD (with support from ISOC Accounting staff), discusses budget
proposals before going to the whole IAOC.
* Meetings Committee: reviews candidate IETF meeting venues and
proposes selections for approval by the IAOC.
Further details about IAOC Committees, including the current list of
committees and membership, is available from https://iaoc.ietf.org/
committees.html .
4. Evolution of Internet Society Partnership
When the IASA was formally created, the Internet Society had only
recently established a substantial and steady financial basis
(through its Public Interest Registry project). "Internet
Governance" was a relatively new global policy discussion topic, and
the Internet Society provided a much needed voice from the Internet
technical community. It had a very small staff (10 staff listed in
the 2004 annual report), a broad footprint of Chapters around the
globe, and a few, focused projects undertaken by staff.
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Since 2005, the Internet Society has expanded significantly,
organizationally (reaching 90+ staff) and in its presence on the
world stage of Internet policy, development and technology. While it
remains committed to its role of support of the IETF, it becomes
increasingly challenging to maintain (and explain) the reality that
the Internet Society and the IETF are two separate organizations,
with independent roles and perspectives, while everything from the
hotel contracts to the MoU with ICANN (for IANA services) is signed
by the Internet Society (as the legal entity for the IETF).
5. Issues and Potential Next Steps for the IASA structure
Here are some issues that could use addressing in updates to the IASA
structure:
o The most general question: the effort involved in IASA-related
tasks has considerably risen during its existence, and the current
organisational arrangements may no longer be the perfect match for
the task. Are changes needed in the organisation?
o The 2017 IETF is more diverse and more international than it was
previously. Arranging meetings is a particular area that today
demands more work. In addition, the IETF community periodically
raises new requirements that must be met by venues. Local
conditions, invitation and visa processes, and hotel and network
facilities demand effort. While the IAOC has made some changes
regarding site selection, and ongoing IETF working group efforts
will help specify requirements more clearly, this remains a
sensitive and critical area.
o Sponsorship and hosting issues in particular are increasingly
difficult for meetings. While some operational changes are being
made to the sponsorship opportunities for the IETF, the IETF would
probably be served well by moving more towards a funding model
that is independent of the meetings.
o In the last couple of years, the IAOC and ISOC have worked to
ensure that contributions such as staff time and other support are
properly accounted for in the IETF budget. This increases
transparency and awareness. However, even with this progress, the
actual work is still organised within two separate organisations,
which makes it hard to have one decision point regarding where and
how to spend resources.
o Clarity of IETF representative communications: who is responsible
for determining the structure and message of the IETF's place on
the world stage, to potential sponsors, etc. The IASA role is to
ensure there are appropriate resources (expertise, materials), but
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it is not currently clear to whom those should be provided, and
therefore, what the specification of the task is.
o Representation for sponsorship: The Internet Society is formally
responsible for IETF fund raising (per BCP101). The IASA is
responsible for aligning promised sponsor benefits with meeting
realities, and tracking the overall budget. Currently, the IASA
relies on the IETF Chair to take responsibility for managing
discussions required to vet any possible changes in
representation, but perhaps there are other models that would
scale more effectively.
o Clarity of role in the IETF Endowment: related to the question of
determining the shape of representative communications materials,
potential IETF Endowment contributors ask for a perspective of
where the IETF is going in the next decade, and how Endowment
money might be used. The future of the IETF is not for the IASA
to decide, but the IAOC's role in building and managing the IETF
budget make it a natural place to look for some of these answers.
This highlights three problems:
* It is ISOC that is pitching the IETF Endowment (because ISOC is
a legal organization; because the IETF is not supposed to do
fundraising, per BCP 101) and potential funders can be confused
why the IETF is not speaking directly.
* The obvious question, "Why doesn't ISOC just pay for it?" --
which stems from a lack of perception of the different world
roles of the two organizations.
* In preparing the pitch for the IETF Endowment, ISOC naturally
turns to the "money manager" of the IETF to get answers to
questions, and it is confusing when the IAOC can neither
provide answers or identify the suitably responsible part of
the organization.
A better plan would be to have clarity about who the IETF thinks
is responsible for such discussions, and messaging that more
clearly to the rest of the world.
o Clarifying, and as necessary, updating the relationship between
the IETF and the Internet Society: in establishing the IASA in
2005, the IETF and the Internet Society determined the best
relationship was to have the IASA homed as an Internet Society
project. Is that still the best arrangement for all concerned?
o Staffing: The IASA was created with one full-time IETF staff
person -- the IETF Administrative Director. Some questioned
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whether it would even be a full-time job. It always has been at
least a full-time job, and over the years the shortfall of
resources has been at least partially addressed by contributions
of Internet Society staff resources that are available (e.g., see
notes above about the IETF Communications plans, etc). The
problems are mismatch of talent, (lack of) resources for the IETF,
and unplanned impact on resources for the Internet Society that
has its own projects to pursue. It would be better that the IETF
should just manage its own staffing needs
o IAOC membership: The IAOC has 4 ex officio members (IETF Chair,
IAB Chair, ISOC CEO, IETF Administrative Director (non-voting)),
and 5 appointed members. One of 5 members is appointed by the
ISOC Board of Trustees, and is traditionally expected not to stand
for IAOC Chair. That leaves a small pool from which to select the
IAOC Chair (and the IETF Trust Chair, usually a different person),
and very few (2, by the time you've appointed Chairs) "worker
bees" for the IAOC. This is a functional model for handling those
review issues that can be put to the IAOC by the IAD and the
Committees and addressed in the IAOC monthly teleconference.
There is zero bandwidth for deep review or engagement on any
topic. Whle the IAOC was intended only ever to be oversight, and
the IAD does not need a huge flock of "bosses", the fact that this
shallowness has become a friction point suggests that something
structural needs to change, either within the IAOC or the IASA
staffing.
o IETF Trust Trustees: Since its inception, the Trustees of the IETF
Trust have been defined as the current sitting IAOC members.
While the Trust was being established, there was value in keeping
the process of identifying Trustees simple, especially if the
Trust did not persist beyond its minimum lifespan (July 1, 2010).
The Trust has become an integral part of the IETF support system
and seems to be here to stay. It could be useful to appoint
Trustees through some process independent of appointing IAOC
members, to reduce the level of role and committee overload
described elsewhere, and also to make the separation between the
Trust and the IETF clearer and better formalized.
o IETF participant engagement in IASA: Most participants in the IETF
demonstrate little interest in the work done by IASA, including
how things are administered and paid for, unless something goes
"wrong". (Consider the consistent lack of interest and short
volunteer lists for open IAOC positions, contrasted against the
e-mail evaluations of meeting venues at each and every IETF
meeting. Hmmm. Perhaps the latter dissuades potential
volunteers?!). This makes it difficult for the IAOC to identify,
pursue, or suggest changes that might ultimately be in the
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organizations long term (or, sometimes, even short term) interest.
More consistent engagement might help.
6. Closing remarks
The creation of the IETF was a step in formalizing discussions among
engineers who were interested in the development of the
specifications of the technology to drive the Internet. Creating the
IASA was a logical step in bringing together the various
administrative functions that had been first offered by different
organizations involved in the work. As the world continues to evolve
around the IETF and the Internet, perhaps it is time for another
review of where we are and whether our administrative formalizations
fit the needs of the work at hand.
7. Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Harald Alvestrand, Brian Carpenter, Dave Crocker,
Lucy Lynch and Greg Wood for review and comments on an earlier
version of the document.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC2860] Carpenter, B., Baker, F., and M. Roberts, "Memorandum of
Understanding Concerning the Technical Work of the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority", RFC 2860,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2860, June 2000,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2860>.
[RFC4071] Austein, R., Ed. and B. Wijnen, Ed., "Structure of the
IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA)", BCP 101,
RFC 4071, DOI 10.17487/RFC4071, April 2005,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4071>.
[RFC5378] Bradner, S., Ed. and J. Contreras, Ed., "Rights
Contributors Provide to the IETF Trust", BCP 78, RFC 5378,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5378, November 2008,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5378>.
8.2. Informative References
[RFC3716] IAB Advisory Committee, "The IETF in the Large:
Administration and Execution", RFC 3716,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3716, March 2004,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3716>.
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[RFC4371] Carpenter, B., Ed. and L. Lynch, Ed., "BCP 101 Update for
IPR Trust", BCP 101, RFC 4371, DOI 10.17487/RFC4371,
January 2006, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4371>.
[RFC5540] Editor, RFC., "40 Years of RFCs", RFC 5540,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5540, April 2009,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5540>.
Author's Address
Leslie Daigle
Thinking Cat Enterprises LLC
Email: ldaigle@thinkingcat.com
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