Folks, Only one week left, please send your nominations for open IESG and IAB positions to nomcom04@ietf.org, many thanks to those of you that have already provided feedback to the NomCom. IESG members whose terms are up are: Harald Alvestrand -- IETF Chair Bill Fenner -- Routing Area Ted Hardie -- Applications Area Russ Housley -- Security Area David Kessens -- Operations & Management Area Thomas Narten -- Internet Area Jon Peterson -- Transport Area IAB members whose terms are up are: Bernard Aboba Rob Austein Sally Floyd Jun-ichiro Itojun Hagino Mark Handley Geoff Huston The nomination period will end Tuesday, November 23, 2004. Any member of the IETF community may nominate any member of the IETF community for any position. Self-nominations are permitted and encouraged. Likewise, if you have any feedback regarding current incumbents, please send it to nomcom04@ietf.org. IAB desired qualifications can be found here: http://www.iab.org/documents/docs/2004-10-21-iab-quals.html IESG qualifications are included below. Thanks! -danny IESG Desired Qualifications With the adoption of the new Nominations Committee procedures defined in RFC 3777, the IESG is responsible for providing a summary of the expertise desired of the candidates selected for open IESG positions. This information is included below, and is suitable for publication to the community, along with the Nomination Committee's request for nominations. We realize that this is a long list of demanding qualifications, and that no one person will be able meet all of the requirements for a specific position. We trust that the NomCom will weigh all of these qualifications and choose IESG members who represent the best possible balance of these qualifications. Generic Requirements: IESG members are the managers of the IETF standards process. This means that they must understand the way the IETF works, be good at working with other people, be able to inspire and encourage other people to work together on a volunteer basis, and have sound technical judgment about IETF technology. ADs select and directly manage the WG chairs, so IESG members should possess sufficient interpersonal and management skills to manage ~15-30 part-time people. Most ADs are also responsible for one or more directorates or review teams. So the ability to identify good leaders and technical experts and recruit them for IETF work is required. Having been a WG chair helps in understanding the WG chair role, and will help in resolving problems and issues that a WG chair may have. In addition, all IESG members should have strong technical expertise that crosses two or three IETF areas. Ideally, an IESG member would have made significant technical contributions in more than one IETF area, preferably authoring documents and/or chairing WGs in more than one area. IESG members are expected to make sure that every document coming before the IESG is properly reviewed. Although IESG members may delegate the actual review to individuals or review teams, the IESG members will need to understand and represent the reviewers' objections or comments. So the ability and willingness to read and understand complex information quickly is another important attribute in an IESG member. It is helpful for an IESG member to have a good working knowledge of the IETF document process and WG creation and chartering process. This knowledge is most likely to be found in experienced IETF WG chairs, but may also be found in authors of multiple documents. IESG members must also have strong verbal and written communications skills and a proven track record of leading and contributing to the consensus of diverse groups. A few comments on the IESG role: Serving on the IESG requires a substantial time commitment. The basic IESG activities consume between 25 and 40 hours per week (varying by area and by month, with the most time required immediately before IETF meetings). Most IESG members also participate in additional IETF leadership activities, further increasing the time commitment for those individuals. It is also imperative that IESG members attend all IETF meetings and up to two additional IESG retreats per year. Because of the large time and travel commitments, employer support is essential for an IESG member. Applications Area: The Applications Area focuses on applications that run across the Internet and require some sort of standardized infrastructure to be effective. This includes, but is not limited to: E-Mail, instant messaging systems, Web protocols, Directory services, printing services and NetNews. The Applications area often discusses whether something is properly the realm of the IETF or "belongs" to other organizations. Because of this, and Applications AD needs to be willing and able to relate to a wide range of non-IETF organizations. An Applications AD also needs to be someone that we can trust to make these critical decisions about the scope of the IETF's work. Because of the breadth of the Applications area, an Application AD will have to deal with a large set of Internet applications protocols, including many with which he or she may not have direct experience. So, an Applications AD needs to be good at evaluating new approaches to new problems and assessing the expertise of the people who bring them to the IETF Because the set of people in the Applications Area changes with the protocols currently under development, the ability to clearly explain how the IETF works, and to help new WGs work well within the IETF framework is also important. The Applications Area most often intersects with, and sometimes swaps working groups or work items with, the Security Area (for application-level security, or applications where security is an important aspect) and the Transport Area (for issues with congestion in applications, or interfacing with the multimedia and SIP WGs that have traditionally been homed in Transport), so cross-area expertise in either of these areas would be particularly useful. Internet Area: The primary technical areas covered by the Internet area include: IP(v4 & v6), DNS, Host & Router Configuration, Mobility and Link-Layer Security. The Internet Area is also responsible for defining how IP will run over new link layer protocols as they are defined. Internet ADs are expected to have a solid understanding of IPv4 and IPv6, MTU and fragmentation related issues, various types of IP addressing, IP forwarding and IP tunneling. The Internet area has one of the broadest ranges of technical topics. It has been typical of the Internet area to have its two Area Directors divide the topics they specialize in, because it is too much to expect that both ADs will have a very strong command of DNS, Mobility, VPNs, IPv6, DHCP, Network Access Control and various link-layer technologies. The NomCom should consider the skills of the sitting Internet Area Director and look for technical balance with even more care than in other areas. The Internet area intersects most frequently with the Routing Area (particularly for IP Forwarding and Multicast), the Operations & Management Area (for MIB development & Link-layer security mechanisms (AAA/RADIUS)) and the Security Area (for IPsec and IKE). So, cross-area expertise in any of those areas would be particularly useful. Operations & Management Area: The primary technical areas covered by the Operations & Management area include: Network Management, AAA, DNS and various operational issues facing the Internet (DNS operations, IPv6 operations, Routing operations). Unlike most IETF areas, the Operations & Management area is logically divided into two separate functions: Network Management and Operations. David Kessens is responsible for the Operations portion of the OPS area, so specific expertise required for the 2005 open position would include a strong understanding of Internet operations and a solid standing in the Internet operator community. The Operations AD is largely responsible for soliciting operator feedback and input regarding IETF work. This is a challenging task that requires strong contacts in the operations community and a great deal of persistence. Another important role of the Operations AD is to identify potential or actual operational issues regarding IETF protocols and documents in all areas, and to work with the other areas to resolve those issues. This requires a strong understanding of how new and updated protocols may affect operations, and the ability to gather information from the operations community and translate that information into suggestions for protocol architecture and design within the IETF. It also requires a strong cross-area understanding of IETF protocol architecture and technologies. The Operations portion of the OPS area intersects most often with the Routing, Internet and Security areas. So, cross-area expertise in any of those areas would be particularly useful. Routing Area: The Routing Area is responsible for ensuring continuous operational status of the Internet routing system by maintaining the scalability and stability characteristics of the existing routing protocols, as well as developing new protocols, extensions, and bug fixes in a timely manner. In particular, forwarding methods (such as destination-based unicast and multicast forwarding, and MPLS), as well as associated routing and signalling protocols (e.g., OSPF, IS-IS, BGP, RSVP-TE, PIM) are within the scope of the Routing Area. The Area also works on Generalized MPLS used in the control plane of optical networks and on security aspects of the routing system. A Routing AD is required to have solid knowledge of the Internet routing system and its operations and must be proficient in at least one of the mainstream routing protocols/technologies such as BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, MPLS, GMPLS, or multicast. Implementation and deployment experience, as well as significant contributions to the WGs in the area are highly desirable. The Routing area intersects most frequently with the Internet Area (particularly for IP Forwarding and Multicast), the Operations & Management Area (for MIB development) and the Security Area (for Routing Protocol security). So, cross-area expertise in any of those areas would be particularly useful. Security Area: The WGs within the Security Area are primarily focused on security protocols. They provide one or more of the security services: integrity, authentication, non-repudiation, confidentiality, and access control. Since many of the security mechanisms needed to provide these security services are cryptographic, key management is also vital. Security ADs are expected to ensure that all IETF specifications are reviewed for adequate security coverage. They also manage a set of security resources that are available to most IETF areas and WGs. Specific expertise required for a Security AD would include a strong knowledge of IETF security protocols, particularly IPsec, IKE, and TLS, and a good working knowledge of security protocols and mechanisms that have been developed inside and outside the IETF, most notably including PKI. Also, a Security AD should understand how to weigh the security requirements of a protocol against operational and implementation requirements. We must be pragmatic; otherwise people will not implement and deploy the secure protocols that the IETF standardizes. The Security Area intersects with all other IETF areas, and its ADs are expected to read and understand the security implications of documents in all areas. So, broad knowledge of IETF technologies and the ability to assimilate new information quickly are imperative for a Security AD. Transport Area: The primary technical areas covered by the Transport area include: Transport Protocols (TCP, UDP, SCTP), Congestion Control, NFS, IP Telephony, SIP, and Signalling. A Transport AD should have a good understanding of congestion control, flow control, real-time transport protocols and other transport-level issues that affect application layer protocols. These basic transport skills should also be augmented by strong interest and skills in multimedia, VoIP, SIP, and such issues as NAT and identity. The Transport area intersects most frequently with Internet Area, the Applications Area and the Security Area. So, cross-area expertise in any of those areas would be particularly useful. The Transport area is the largest IETF area, both in number of WGs to manage (26) and in the number of documents in progress. A Transport AD must be prepared to invest more time than the average AD, just to fulfill the basic requirements of the position. IETF Chair: The IETF Chair has four major roles: Representing the IETF to the outside world, overseeing the work of the IETF as a whole, overseeing the work of the IESG in particular, and serving as the General area director. Serving as IETF Chair is currently a full-time job. So, a candidate for this position needs to be willing to put aside his or her own technical work and other major professional roles for at least a two-year period. The IETF Chair is asked to speak at numerous conferences and to represent the IETF to government officials, representatives of other standards bodies and the press. While the IETF Chair has control over which of these invitations he or she accepts, any candidate for this position should be willing and able to represent the IETF effectively in these fora. Chairing the IETF requires excellent communications skills, strong leadership skills and the ability and willingness to keep the community informed of all issues that are important to the IETF as a whole, to establish community consensus on those issues and to speak and act in accordance with that consensus. Among other things, this involves working with the IAB Chair to plan plenary sessions and effectively running meetings with over 1000 attendees. In the IESG chair role, the IETF chair is responsible for coordinating the activities of the other twelve Area Directors and providing top-level management for the IETF standards process. The IETF chair must be capable of intervening when difficulties arise between ADs or between an AD and a WG chair. The IETF Chair also oversees the handling of appeals sent to the IESG, the mechanisms for IESG internal process change, and the production of any statements issued by the IESG. The IETF Chair also currently serves as the IETF's main contact point with the IETF Secretariat, and works together with the IAB chair and the ISOC President to manages the relationship with the RFC Editor. It should be noted that this aspect of the IETF Chair role may change significantly due to the Administrative Restructuring effort. The General Area consists of a few IETF WGs and other activities focused on supporting, updating and maintaining the IETF's standards development process. As General AD, the IETF chair should meet the general requirements for an IESG member (listed above), and is expected to play a full role in IESG document review and approval. The General AD must also have a strong understanding of the IETF standards process and a commitment to maintain and improve that process in a careful and open manner. _______________________________________________ IETF-Announce@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce
