IETF 86

IETF 86
Name	IETF 86
Date	January 2013
Location	Orlando, Florida, United States
Venue	Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin
Organizer	Internet Engineering Task Force
Previous	IETF 85
Next	IETF 87

IETF 86

IETF 86 was the January 2013 meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force held in Orlando, Florida, at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin resort. The meeting assembled participants from the Internet Society, the Internet Architecture Board, the Internet Research Task Force, the IAB, the IRTF, and multiple IETF working groups to advance standards work across protocols such as TCP/IP, HTTP/1.1, DNS, BGP, and IPv6. Delegates included representatives from technology companies, academic institutions, standards organizations, and network operators who contributed to development of several Request for Comments documents and operational best practices.

Overview

IETF 86 followed the tradition of plenary sessions and working group meetings that characterize gatherings like IETF 80, IETF 81, IETF 82, and earlier plenary assemblies such as the IETF 50 and IETF 75. The meeting featured tutorials, plenary talks, Birds of a Feather sessions, and focused sessions for the Transport Area, Applications Area, Security Area, Routing Area, Operations and Management Area, Real-time Applications and Infrastructure Area, and General Area. Notable protocol topics addressed included extensions to TLS, updates to SMTP, improvements to DNSSEC, and work on CAPTCHA alternatives. Attendees included engineers from Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Akamai Technologies, Verizon Communications, AT&T, NTT Communications, China Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, and academics from MIT, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Cambridge, and ETH Zurich.

Organization and Hosts

The meeting was organized by the IETF Administrative Directorate in coordination with the Internet Society, hosted by local arrangements partners at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin, and staffed by volunteers from the IETF community, the IAB, and the IRTF. Chairs and area directors included leaders associated with the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee, the IESG, and working group chairs drawn from companies such as Cisco Systems and institutions like University College London and Nokia. Logistics involved coordination with hospitality teams, audiovisual vendors, and travel partners used frequently by conferences such as ICANN, RIPE, APNIC, ARIN, and LACNIC.

Meeting Agenda and Working Groups

The agenda incorporated sessions from more than 100 working groups, reflecting continuity with agendas from IETF 83 and IETF 84. Key working groups meeting included TLS WG, HTTPBIS WG, DNSOP WG, SIDR WG, BFD WG, BGP WG, 6MAN WG, 6LOWPAN WG, ROHC WG, MPTCP WG, TLS WG, DNSSEC WG, and OAuth WG. Sessions covered topics such as congestion control, multipath transport, middlebox interactions, secure email, and protocol extensibility, paralleling work seen in standards bodies like W3C and collaborations with research projects at IETF Hackathon events. Tutorial tracks featured speakers from IETF Trust stakeholders and invited experts from IETF RFC Editor teams, academies including Carnegie Mellon University and Princeton University, and vendors such as IBM and Intel Corporation.

Key Decisions and RFCs Adopted

During IETF 86, several working groups advanced documents to IESG review or publication as RFCs, continuing the lineage of protocol development seen in RFCs like those produced at IETF 79 and IETF 85. Decisions included progress on updates to SMTP interoperability guidance, clarifications to BGP operational procedures, and adoption of markers for IPv6 transition mechanisms. Security-related outputs advanced work on TLS cipher suite recommendations and guidance similar to prior efforts by IETF Security Area participants and the IAB. The meeting influenced RFC workstreams maintained by the RFC Editor and interfaced with standards tracked by bodies including IEEE 802.11, ITU-T, and ETSI.

Outreach, Side Events, and Hackathons

IETF 86 hosted outreach activities, Birds of a Feather gatherings, a community meeting about IETF processes, and a hackathon that brought together implementers, operators, and researchers. Side events included tutorials co-sponsored by vendors and universities, demonstrations by open source projects such as BIND, OpenSSL, Quagga, BIRD, Kea DHCP, and ISC DHCP, and panels with participation from entities like APNIC, RIPE NCC, ARIN, ICANN staff, and the Internet Society chapters. The hackathon emphasized interoperable implementations, test harness development, and collaborative debugging that echoed efforts seen at IETF 80 and community-driven events such as DEF CON meetups and FOSDEM demonstrations.

Attendance and Statistics

Attendance at IETF 86 included several hundred participants, with registrants from North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Africa. The demographic mix featured network operators from Level 3 Communications, researchers from NASA, engineers from Oracle Corporation, policymakers from agencies that interact with standards bodies, and students sponsored by academic institutions like University of Oxford and University of Toronto. Metrics tracked by the IETF Administrative Directorate included session counts, number of working group meetings, RFC drafts progressed, and participation levels similar to other meetings such as IETF 87 and IETF 88.

Category:IETF meetings