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 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 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 Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 1] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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. Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 2] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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) Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 3] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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. Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 4] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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 Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 5] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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 Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 6] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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 Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 7] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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. Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 8] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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 Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 9] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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 Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 10] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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 Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 11] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 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, . [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, . [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, . 8.2. Informative References [RFC3716] IAB Advisory Committee, "The IETF in the Large: Administration and Execution", RFC 3716, DOI 10.17487/RFC3716, March 2004, . Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 12] Internet-Draft IASA Retrospective June 2017 [RFC4371] Carpenter, B., Ed. and L. Lynch, Ed., "BCP 101 Update for IPR Trust", BCP 101, RFC 4371, DOI 10.17487/RFC4371, January 2006, . [RFC5540] Editor, RFC., "40 Years of RFCs", RFC 5540, DOI 10.17487/RFC5540, April 2009, . Author's Address Leslie Daigle Thinking Cat Enterprises LLC Email: ldaigle@thinkingcat.com Daigle Expires December 7, 2017 [Page 13]