Journey at IETF and IIESoc

My day starts with alerts from my phone, reminding me of my daily routine, meetings, events , and many 

more activities that make use of internet. For this wonderful and ubiquitous technology popularly known 

as “The Internet”  to run effortlessly end to end, a combination of protocols are utilized.

Having started career in wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies with WSN protocols for Internet of 

Things (IoT), RFCs have been a major support throughout my journey. The initial understanding of all 

these mind blowing inventions, made me to go through Request for Comments (RFC). RFCs are 

worldwide accepted standards for the protocols. After gaining basic understanding of RFCs, I started 

exploring Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which is responsible for developing and standardizing 

the protocols on which the internet runs. "Protocols" are technical rule sets -- explicit documents, 

procedures, etc., that allow computers and electronic devices like routers to talk to each other, share data, 

etc. While exploring different working areas in IETF, few areas like Applications and Real-Time Area (art), 

Internet Area (int) & Routing Area (rtg) caught my interest.

In many ways, IETF runs on the beliefs of its participants. The major mission of  IETF is “to make the 

Internet work better". One of the early quotes about IETF from David Clark: "We reject kings, presidents 

and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code". One more quote about IETF comes from 

Jon Postel: "Be conservative in what you send and liberal in what you accept". For all the newcomers, 

IETF offers its complete support through getting started with IETF course. The IETF is overseen by the 

Internet Architecture Board (IAB). Based on the area of interest, participants can join specific

 active working groups mailing list.

 

IETF99 Indian community post dinner at Prague

It was a great opportunity to be selected for IETF-99 meeting under fellowship program by Internet Society 

(ISOC). It gave me a great exposure by providing opportunity to attend the meeting physically at Prague. 

This opportunity opened doors to many more working group meetings and an opportunity to discuss with 

technical legends. As a fellow, I got Abhijan Battacharyya as my mentor who guided me throughout IETF 

and boosted me to kick start with a draft for RFC. IETF-99 provided a warm welcome to its newcomers 

into the family, I still cherish the amazing moments like  spending time with ISOC board members and 

IETF area directors over dinner.

The first two days of IETF-99 were flooded with meetings and an extremely engaging hackathon which is 

undoubtedly one of the best experiences in IETF meetings. Bits-N-Bites is another interesting and my 

favorite part of IETF meetings where all the accomplished and ongoing achievements were demonstrated 

to the public. In IETF meeting, I came to know about India Internet Engineering Society (IIESOC). 

IIESOC is proceeding with a fantabulous mission towards the adoption of Internet standards in India in 

order to increase participation in IETF standards activities. The plan to achieve the mission is to conduct 

capacity building programs in the Indian networking community in order to provide technical inputs in 

the policy area, to provide a forum for computer networking professionals, academicians, researchers, 

network operators and programmers to discuss technical issues in an Indian context and to mentor people 

to take on IETF leadership positions. It is therefore acting as a nodal agency for organising IETF in India.

Fun photo sessions with fellows and delegates post events at IETF-99 in Prague

After a successful meeting of IETF-99, IIESOC planned for pre-IETF connections 2017 on November 8th 

and 9th. I feel extremely delighted to be able to attend this event. This was the connection for IETF-100 

meeting organised in Singapore on November 11-17, 2017. Behind every organisation and community 

there is always a great vision and mission. Similarly, the prime mission of IIESOC is further adoption of 

Internet standards in India by increasing participation in IETF standard activities and bringing all the 

academicians, researchers, network operators, and programmers under a common roof.

It was a great experience to be a part of IIESOC connections Pre-IETF meeting. First day was filled with

inspiring and informative technical talks from renowned speakers. There were several parallel tracks like 

IoT track, SDN Track, APPS track and Security Track. The first day itself filled the attendees with valuable 

knowledge in their respective areas of interest. There were significant contribution from India for IETF 

Internet protocols standardisation. To grow the community and to reach the mission, the whole team is 

putting their efforts to bring IETF to India in future. I feel grateful to IIESOC for taking this initiative and 

for the insightful technical awareness programme.

IIESOC launch at Infosys campus in the famously known garden city Bengaluru

Second day was more interesting and reminded me of Bits-N-Bites of IETF. The day was consisted of 

hackathon, engaging interactions, knowledge sharing and RFC discussions. This helped everyone to  get 

an in depth idea of IETF working process, involvement procedure and ways to contribute more and more.

One with the legends: Carsten Bormann (second from left) and Abhijaan Bhattacharryya (third from left)

Last but not least, the IETF world of “rough consensus and running code” is involved in each and every 

aspect of our lives. Let’s get ourselves involved to a greater extent and increase the contribution from India 

to “The Internet”.