Don, I appreciate you taking the effort to reach out to the community. I will not be attending the next NANOG for several reasons not worth mentioning in the greater context of your request.
I have attended most of the NANOG meetings starting with NANOG 13. I am among those whom have passively observed a steady decline in value from attending the NANOG over the past several years. It is far too easy to criticize any organized event, and there are many on this list that could do a far better job then I. I will thus make one specific observation, then focus my attention on what I find valuable in the other conferences I most frequently attend: RIPE and APRICOT. In my opinion, the most successful conferences I have attended are those that actively encourage engagement and participation. Conferences where I've simply shown up to listen to "talking heads" fade into obscure memory on the significance scale. What I like about the RIPE and APRICOT (and perhaps even ARIN) conferences apart is that they encourage and invite participation from the community through the use of tracks and working groups, while still maintaining a significant number of interesting presentations for the community as a whole. Some would argue that for the "North American" market, these special interest groups, such as IPv6, VoIP, and VOD should be kept within the confines of the ARIN and IETF meetings and that operators should attend those meetings if they wish to participate. I respectfully disagree as I think that it unnecessary excludes a lot of willing participants who could add significant value. RIPE NCC and APNIC, like ARIN, conduct parallel and overlapping meetings with the operator community. The RIPE meetings and the annual APRICOT meetings include tracks for the registry functions, but also Working Group tracks for topics that overlap with the IETF meetings. Although sometimes RIPE and APRICOT offer two tracks in parallel that would be worthwhile attending where I have to choose one over the other, I am happy these choices are available. There are several topics I feel deserve to be segmented off so that we can make the NANOG meetings more productive. A few WG topics off the top of my head: 1/ IPv6. Most are aware that IPv6 needs to be adopted at some point in the future. Many are cognizant of the fact that it is sooner than most believe. Some understand that there are still some key problems with IPv6 that have yet to be solved. A few fear that today's hardware cannot handle tomorrows dual-stack route explosion. Outside of a few talks and presentations there is no forum in the NANOG meeting to work through these issues. 2/ VOIP. How does it work? How is it implemented? What is ENUM? What is VOIP Peering? How can it help save money? What is Jitter and how does it relate to Voice? Why does QOS matter for VOIP? What paid- and open-source tools are out there to get started with VOIP? 3/ Video-on-Demand. Why it matters? How to implement it? Does multicasting content really save bandwidth? How big will content really get? 4/ Network Convergence, Carrier of Carriers, Risks and Rewards, etc.... 5/ Peering, perhaps... Note that this goes beyond the concept of Birds-of-Feather meetings, which generally seem either too short or too long. I'm sure this will ruffle the feathers of a bunch of people and I expect to be beaten back into silence, but at least I have expressed my opinion... :-) Best Regards, -- Randy Whitney Verizon Business [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Don > Welch, Merit Network > Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 4:58 PM > Cc: nanog-futures@merit.edu > Subject: Re: 2 meetings / budgets [Re: mlc files formal > complaint against me] > > I've been involved with NANOG for over a year now. I have formed my > opinions on how well things work or don't work and will steal my own > thunder in this post. > > I have already charged Betty to increase the value of NANOG > to Merit. I > think she has taken some good steps in this direction. During the ABQ > meeting I plan to challenge the new SC to increase the value > of NANOG to > the community. NANOG was great years ago. The community says > it is not > as great as it was because they are not attending/participating. If > NANOG has outlived its usefulness we can put it to sleep or > change it to > make it more useful. Merit can help facilitate the change, > but the SC, > PC, MLC and other members of the community are the only ones who can > truly make NANOG more valuable to the community. The ratio of > unproductive interactions to value-adding interactions that I've > observed among the NANOG leadership is not what we would find > in a great > organization. > > The reason I've sent this message rather than wait to say it > in person > is that I want everyone who cares about NANOG to think about > how we can > make it more valuable. If appropriate discuss it here on > NANOG-futures. > There has been some good discussion recently, but think > outside the box > (to use an overused term). Anything that we can do to see a > productive > community meeting, a thoughtful election, and meetings with > the SC, PC > and MLC that lead to a better NANOG. > > Thanks, > Don > > William B. Norton wrote: > > On 10/9/07, *Sean Figgins* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> > > wrote: > > > > Joe Abley wrote: > > > > > No, there's a fixed overhead from having N x Merit > FTEs doing NANOG > > > stuff year-round, housing NANOG servers, being > covered by UMich > > > insurance, accounting, blah, blah. I'm not an > accountant, as you > > can > > > probably tell, but I think that's the right high-level answer. > > > > > > > > Just out of curiosity, what is the breakdown of those > numbers? I mean, > > how many FTE is NANOG using from Merit, and how many > servers in Merit > > managing for NANOG? Are any of the servers shared with > other Merit > > projects, or are they self contained? I don't really > care to know the > > financial information, as that is between the SC and Merit. > > > > > > Check out Betty's slides at: > > http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0702/community.html > > <http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0702/community.html> > > > > The big $$$ is to the hotel - $105K for 1 mtg. > > > > A close second biggest cost looks like the staff cost - shown as > > "Salary" and I would add in the "G&A". This is for 2-3 FTEs spread > > across a bunch of folks who collectively handle the load of NANOG > > activities. It looks like Merit allocates 1/3 of this > expense to each > > of the 3 meetings. If there were 2 meetings, the staffing > costs would > > be allocated across 2 points. The bottom line, I think you > need a few > > FTEs no matter how you manage NANOG. > > > > Having fewer meetings decreases the revenue while keeping > the 2-3 FTEs > > constant. Probably leads to a greater net loss. > > > > My conclusion is that more revenue is needed, more > sponsorships, more > > beer-n-gear revenue, more NANOG commemorative mugs and boxer shorts. > > > > And find a way to knock down the hotel expenses somehow. > > > > BTW - I didn't see the ARIN $50K contributions in the > budget on this > > page. Maybe Cisco should kick in $50K in kind and we don't need to > > have this conversation ;-) > > -- > > Donald J. Welch, Ph.D. > > President & CEO > > Merit Network – Connecting Organizations, Building Community > > 1000 Oakbrook Drive > > Ann Arbor, MI 48104 > > 734-615-0547 > > www.merit.edu <http://www.merit.edu/> > > >
