Initial Thoughts on Completely Virtual IETF Meetings
draft-manycouches-completely-virtual-meetings-00
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| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
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|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Dan York | ||
| Last updated | 2016-10-30 | ||
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| Consensus boilerplate | Unknown | ||
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draft-manycouches-completely-virtual-meetings-00
manycouches D. York
Internet-Draft October 31, 2016
Intended status: Informational
Expires: May 4, 2017
Initial Thoughts on Completely Virtual IETF Meetings
draft-manycouches-completely-virtual-meetings-00
Abstract
This document captures initial thoughts about having IETF meetings
that are completely virtual. It explores the issues involved with
both a "planned" virtual meeting and an "emergency" virtual meeting.
Status of This Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on May 4, 2017.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2016 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
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. Conventions and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Meeting Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Timezones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3. Deadlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4. Plenaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. User Journey / Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. Participating in multiple sessions . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Side meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.3. Hallway conversations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.4. Unstructured time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.5. Serendipity - discovering other users . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.6. Microphone lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.7. Mentoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.8. Inclusivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Technical Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.3. Network Operation Center (NOC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Administrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.1. Centralized Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.2. Finances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.1. Availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.2. Integrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
8. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Appendix B. Development Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1. Introduction
What would a "completely virtual" IETF meeting look like? What would
be issues? What would be the advantages? How could it work?
The "manycouches" design team was convened to explore these issues
and understand what might be involved in holding a completely virtual
meeting. On 20 July 2017, members met with the IESG for a joint
discussion at the IETF 96 meeting in Berlin. This document outlines
many of the key issues and questions for discussion that emerged out
of that Berlin meeting as well as mailing list conversations.
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Discussions identified two types of potential meetings the IETF could
have that would be completely virtual:
1. PLANNED VIRTUAL MEETING - A "regular" meeting of the IETF that
would be planned to be completely virtual.
2. EMERGENCY VIRTUAL MEETING - There could be a situation where a
planned physical meeting suddenly needs to be virtual due to
physical or political situations. For example, a natural
disaster shortly before a meeting might cause people to not be
able to attend.
Tools and processes may be very similar between the two types of
meetings. A key difference is that for an "emergency" meeting there
may be the desire to replicate the planned schedule of the physical
meeting as closely as possible.
It is unclear if the IETF might ever choose to hold a planned virtual
meeting, but this document is designed to facilitate the discussion
around what that might look like.
1.1. Benefits
Proponents of planned virtual meetings point to benefits such as:
o No requirement to travel, removing an economic issue for many.
o All participants are on an equal footing (versus current situation
where physical participants have more interaction capability than
remote attendees).
o Ability to think differently about how the schedule of the meeting
might look.
The sections below outline many of the questions and ideas, some of
which may be benefits.
1.2. Challenges
There are many challenges with hosting a completely virtual meeting.
Some key issues are:
o Inability to have the "high bandwidth" conversations enabled by
face-to-face meetings.
o No ability to have "hallway conversations" and casual meetings
with other participants.
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The remainder of the document outlines many of the challenges and
associated questions.
Several participants voiced the opinion that replacing a physical
meeting would be pretty much impossible.
1.3. Conventions and Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
Additionally, the key words "*MIGHT*", "*COULD*", "*MAY WISH TO*",
"*WOULD PROBABLY*", "*SHOULD CONSIDER*", and "*MUST (BUT WE KNOW YOU
WON'T)*" in this document are to interpreted as described in RFC 6919
[RFC6919].
2. Program
2.1. Meeting Structure
With a completely virtual meeting, the structure of the meeting does
not have to comply with the traditional IETF meeting schedule. It
could, for instance, stretch out over the entire 24 hours of a day.
Questions for discussion include:
o Is the meeting still structured over a week?
o Do the meetings still exist within certain hours?
o Do multiple meetings exist at the same time as they do now?
Again, in the case of an unplanned "emergency" virtual meeting the
desire may be to stick with the already-planned schedule. But for a
planned virtual meeting the schedule can be open for discussion.
There was some discussion that a meeting could span more than the
traditional week. However, the counterpoint is that keeping it
within a week gives a focused block of time that people could
allocate for participation in the virtual event.
2.2. Timezones
What timezone does a virtual meeting operate in? Or does it operate
in multiple timezones?
One suggestion was that each working group might choose its own
timezone based on the best timezone for the main contributors and
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leaders. (Although this might then limit participation from other
areas of the world.)
2.3. Deadlines
What do deadlines look like for a completely virtual meeting? Are
the deadlines for agendas and drafts kept as they are for a regular
meeting?
2.4. Plenaries
What does a plenary look like in a virtual meeting? The same large
session as today?
3. User Journey / Experience
3.1. Participating in multiple sessions
It is currently possible for remote participants to join into
multiple working group sessions at the same time. Users simply run
Meetecho in multiple browser windows or multiple computers. How does
this impact users' experience?
3.2. Side meetings
It is quite common for groups to decide during an IETF meeting to go
off and have a side meeting.
o How can this capability be reproduced in a virtual environment?
o Could the system allow people to create ad hoc meetings in some
fashion?
3.3. Hallway conversations
The casual hallway conversations are a key component of IETF physical
meetings. How can some version of this capacity be made available?
3.4. Unstructured time
How do you incorporate some concept of "unstructured" time where
people can meet and connect?
3.5. Serendipity - discovering other users
Part of a physical meeting involves discovering other people with
common interests or backgrounds. How do you help people find others?
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3.6. Microphone lines
How do "mic lines" work in a completely virtual meeting? Would this
in fact be a benefit as all attendees would be in the same queue?
3.7. Mentoring
How would the "mentor" program work in a virtual meeting? The same
as with a physical meeting?
3.8. Inclusivity
How do you bring new people into sessions? How do people learn about
side meetings? About hallway conversations?
4. Technical Considerations
Many technical questions need to be discussed.
4.1. Infrastructure
What is the infrastructure used to host a completely virtual meeting?
Are current systems such as Meetecho sufficient? Would new
infrastructure need to be established?
What kind of bandwidth would need to be available?
4.2. Capabilities
Do virtual attendees have video connections? voice? chat?
4.3. Network Operation Center (NOC)
Where does the NOC "exist" for a completly virtual meeting? What is
its role?
5. Administrative
5.1. Centralized Resources
What is the impact of a virtual meeting on centralized resources such
as support staff? What is the full role of the Secretariat during
the meeting?
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5.2. Finances
o What would the impact be on IETF finances?
o Would we charge the same amount to attendees as a regular meeting?
6. Security Considerations
There are many considerations related to security and privacy that
need to be factored in to a virtual meeting.
6.1. Availability
How do we ensure that an attack such as a distributed denial of
service (DDoS) doesn't take out the entire virtual meeting? What
about an attack against a particular region?
6.2. Integrity
How do you know that the person who is logged into whatver system is
used is in fact who they say they are? In a physical meeting:
o We can see the person and physically identify them.
o Users wear name badges that were issued at registration time.
o There are typically other people who may know many individuals.
How are these physical considerations replicated in a virtual
meeting?
7. IANA Considerations
There are no IANA considerations associated with this document.
8. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC6919] Barnes, R., Kent, S., and E. Rescorla, "Further Key Words
for Use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", RFC 6919,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6919, April 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6919>.
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Appendix A. Acknowledgements
The author thanks all of the participants of the manycouches design
team as well as the IESG members who participated in the discussion
on 20 July 2016 at IETF 96 in Berlin.
Appendix B. Development Note
This document is being developed using a repository on Github at:
<https://github.com/danyork/draft-york-manycouches-completely-
virtual-meetings> Comments, issues and pull requests are welcome.
Author's Address
Dan York
Keene, NH
USA
Email: york@isoc.org
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