INTERNET DRAFT Mark Prior Guidelines for IETF Meeting Sites connect.com.au pty ltd <draft-prior-future-host-guidelines-02.txt> Dave Crocker Brandenburg Consulting Bill Manning ISI E. Paul Love Internet Consulting of Vermont Simon Coppins Sellnet Communications Pty Ltd Guidelines for IETF Meeting Sites Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. 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.'' To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the ``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet- Drafts Shadow Directories on ds.internic.net (US East Coast), nic.nordu.net (Europe), ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast), or munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim). This Internet Draft expires on 31 March 1998. Please send comments to the authors. Abstract The IETF is an international group that conducts most of its business using electronic mail however three times a year it conducts an open meeting for one week. For the most part the actual mechanics of the meeting are organised by the IETF secretariat but there are some requirements placed on the local host. This document attempts to provide some guidelines for organisations that wish to volunteer to act as host for one of these open meetings. As the IETF growth pattern mirrors the Internet itself this document expresses sizes as a percentage of the expected attendance rather than use fixed numbers as we expect these numbers to change for each meeting. At the last meeting, in Munich Germany, there were just over 1300 attendees. Travel The IETF is an international organisation so it is expected that meetings will be held in various parts of the globe and that it will be necessary to travel to "remote" locations. In order for this not to become too onerous but to allow meetings to be held in many different countries it is suggested that the site must be located within an hour's travel of a major airport which must have direct (non commuter) connections to the major international (gateway) airports of that country. Ideally this would mean that the host city could be reached with at most 2 aircraft transfers for most attendees. Accommodation The host city must have sufficient hotels within walking distance (maximum 10 minutes) of the meeting site to accommodate everyone that wishes to attend the meeting. At the present time this means providing block booking for the peak night of approximately 60% of the expected attendance (remembering that not everyone attends for the whole week). It is desirable that the hotels be of, at least, superior standard with at least one offering rates within the current US government employee per diem limit and be members of an international chain of hotels (to aid booking of rooms from overseas). Information should also be provided on inexpensive hotels that are within walking distance of the meeting site, to accomodate attendees on a more strict budget. It is also desirable that the hotels be located close by to other amenities, including a range of restaurants with a variety of cuisines (including vegetarian dishes). There should be a variety of means of reaching the hotel from the airport in addition to rental cars, such as taxis, airport shuttles and public transport. Meetings Site The IETF is made up of a large number of working groups the majority of which will wish to meet during the week, possibly more than once. It is therefore a requirement that the meetings site be capable of supporting at least 7 simultaneous meetings with meeting rooms varying in sizes. The specific requirements are as follows: Sunday 1 x 10% 1000-1800 1 x 30% 1500-1700 1 x 80% 1700-2000 Monday - Friday 1 "foyer area" for registration 2 x 5% 0900-2200 2 x 10% 0900-2200 2 x 15% 0900-2200 2 x 20% 0900-2200 2 x 25% 0900-2200 1 x small meeting room (hollow square) 0700-0900 Thursday 1 x 80% 1500-1900 plenary hall In addition an office is required (board room style) from Saturday until Friday for secretariat use. Two of the larger rooms must be capable of supporting the broadcast of proceeding to the Internet. It is preferred that the meeting site be located within one of the hotels but if this is not possible it must be located within 5 minutes walk of the hotels and it must have access for people with disabilities. Terminal Room One component of the meeting that must be provided by the local host is the "terminal room". This room must be located at the meeting site and is in addition to the meetings rooms. It should be designed to provide attendees with easy access from the host location to the Internet. The terminal room is expected to be available from noon Sunday through noon Friday. To accommodate those attendees who arrive on Saturday (due to air fare savings, jet lag recover, etc) it would be desirable to have it operational from Saturday afternoon or evening if possible. The room itself will need to be available for computer/network setup on the Friday preceeding the meeting and should be at least 250 square metres (approx 2500 square feet). An additional room is also required for storage. X window displays (or Windows based PCs) (5%) and Ethernet drops (7.5%) should be provided, with a small number of localtalk runs. In addition 3 high performance laser printers are required with one dedicated to transparencies. It would be very desirable to provide a "small" number of dialin lines to the terminal room so that attendees at hotels remote from the meeting site can readily access the facilities in the terminal room. MBONE Recent IETF meetings have been broadcast over the Internet, normally two simultaneous sessions. To broadcast a meeting you need a connection to the MBONE (Multicast Backbone) over at least an E1/T1 link. As the MBONE is still experimental you will require a MBONE router to connect to the MBONE, this may be a SPARCstation, or other multicast capable workstation as long as it supports pruning, or a cisco router (supporting PIM). To broadcast a session you will need a multicast capable workstation with a frame grabber as well as video & audio mixing equipment suitable for interworking with the sites audio/video facility. This facility should be configured so that remote participants can contribute to the discussion as well as just watch proceedings. It is also desirable that sessions be recorded and rebroadcast during the night to allow people in other time zones and opportunity to watch the session, even if they cannot participate. Social Event Although optional, traditionally the host site has also been responsible for arranging a social event for at least 10-20% of the participants, that is held on one evening early in the week. The actual scope and content of the event is up to the local host, the Secretariat can provide advice on the appropriateness of the event but cannot be directly involved. Authors Mark Prior connect.com.au pty ltd C/- AAPT Level 1, 45 Pirie Street Adelaide, SA 5000 AUSTRALIA Phone: +61 8 8203 2088 Fax: +61 8 8203 2099 Email: mrp@connect.com.au Dave Crocker Brandenburg Consulting 675 Spruce Dr. Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA Phone: +1 408 246 8253 Fax: +1 408 249 6205 Email: dcrocker@brandenburg.com Bill Manning ISI 4676 Admiralty Way #1001 Marina del Rey, CA 90292 USA Phone: +1 310 822 1511 Email: bmanning@isi.edu E. Paul Love Internet Consulting of Vermont Brattleboro, VT 05301 USA Phone: +1 802 254 9087 Fax: +1 802 254 5783 Email: epl@sover.net Simon Coppins SellNet Communications Pty Ltd 155 Fullarton Road Rose Park, SA 5067 AUSTRALIA Phone: +61 8 8431 0044 Fax: +61 8 8431 0074 Email: coppins@sell.net