IETF 109 Preview

Next week, more than 1000 participants will gather online for a densely packed meeting featuring over 100 working sessions. Although we will miss seeing each other in person, we’ll take the opportunity to use the Internet to its fullest to progress the work of the IETF.

Here is a brief list of some of the special events and happenings not to be missed:

One Birds of a Feather (BOF) session is scheduled for the incubation of new work: MAC Address Device Identification for Network and Application Services (MADINAS). The other BOF proposal received in this round, Application-Aware Networking (APN), will continue to be refined for future discussion.

Five working groups will be meeting for the very first time, focusing on a variety of topics including a semantic definition format for the Internet of Things (ASDF), HTTP API building blocks (HTTPAPI), syntax for selecting fields and values from JSON documents (JSONPATH), revision of core email specifications (EMAILCORE), and secure encapsulation for real-time media (SFRAME).

The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) will host two sessions: the IAB open meeting to update the community on current activities and an RFC Editor Future Development program meeting. 

The IETF Hackathon is taking place this week, November 9-13, with teams collaborating on projects virtually. The Hackathon wrap-up session with team presentations will take place on November 13 from 5:00 to 7:00 UTC.

The HotRFC session, where anyone can sign up to come give a short pitch about a new idea, will be running as a real-time virtual session on November 13 from 14:00 to 15:30 UTC. Request a slot by sending a short abstract to hotrfc@ietf.org.

Throughout the week we’ll again be using Gather as a place for informal hallway conversations and gathering during non-meeting times. In Gather you will also find help desks for the RFC Editor, IANA, and the Secretariat as well as areas to meet up with colleagues.

And here are some handy links to help participants make the most of their online IETF meeting experience:

• Register for the meeting (with fee waivers available)
• Review the participant guide with instructions for using our conferencing platform, Meetecho
• Review the Gather guidelines
• Setup jabber group chat or explore the Zulip and Matrix trial services
• Get technical assistance if you need it

Thanks to Cisco as the meeting host and to all of our dedicated sponsors! Special thanks also to the secretariat, Meetecho, the NOC, the tools team, and the IETF LLC for all the work they’ve put into the online meeting experience. 

See you in the sessions and in Gather!