16.3 Internet Standard Bodies

The architecture, maintenance, interoperability, and evolution of the Internet are made possible by the standards bodies that are shown in Figure 16-3.

Figure 16-3. Bodies defining and maintaining the standards for the Internet.

The Internet standards bodies are organized under the umbrella of the Internet Society (ISOC). The society's mission statement is to assure the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world. The ISOC is the organizational home of Internet standards. The body acts as the final point of appeal in the Internet standards process. The ISOC is a nonprofit , nongovernmental , international, professional membership organization.

The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) is responsible for defining the overall architecture of the Internet, providing guidance and broad direction to the IETF. IAB members provide vision and direction to the development of the Internet architecture. The IAB also serves as the technology advisory group to the ISOC and oversees a number of critical activities in support of the Internet. IAB members are elected by a nomination committee, and the normal term for an IAB member is two years . The IAB is also the point of appeal regarding any disputes over the standards process and interpretations of the IESG.

The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) is responsible for technical management of IETF activities and the Internet standards process. As part of the ISOC, it administers the process according to the rules and procedures that have been ratified by ISOC trustees. The IESG is directly responsible for the actions associated with entry into and movement along the Internet "standards track," including final approval of specifications as Internet standards. IESG members who are also elected by the nomination committee with two-year terms are involved in the development of the standards process and are responsible for providing direction to the various work groups, reviewing and approving Internet drafts as RFCs, and approving new work groups proposed in different areas.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is the main protocol engineering and development arm of the Internet. The working of IETF is discussed further in Section 16.3.1.

The Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) tackles the research problems of the Internet. Unlike the IETF, which deals with protocols and issues that directly impact the Internet today and over the short term, the IRTF looks at the Internet from a research perspective and deals with issues that may impact the Internet in the longer term.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was formed as a result of the Internet becoming separated from the NSF. ICANN is responsible for the creation and maintenance of domain prefixes and assignment of port numbers and protocol type numbers . This function, which was earlier performed by IANA (Internet Assigned Numbering Authority), is now taken over by the ICANN.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which was created in 1994, develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential as a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding. W3C defines the standards for the Web. It has developed widely used protocols, such as HTTP and XML.

More information on the standards bodies can be found at the following Web sites: www.ietf.org, www.irtf.org, www.isoc.org, www.iab.org, www.iana.org, www.icann.org, www.w3.org.

16.3.1 IETF

The working and structure of IETF is different from a telecommunication standards body, such as 3GPP and 3GPP2. It is not driven by industry leaders , does not require membership or dues, and is open to any interested individual. This actually benefits the industry by opening up the platform for good ideas and opinions . At the same time, it makes the development of an open protocol slower compared to a telecom standards body.

The actual technical work of the IETF is done in its working groups (WGs), which are organized by topics into several areas. There are eight different areas in the IETF: application area, internet area, operations and management area, routing area, security area, sub-ip area, transport area, and user services area. Each WG has a charter and a set of work items. One chairperson (sometimes two), manages the WGs. The area directors (AD), who are collectively called IESGs, oversee the WGs. The WGs or areas are also overseen by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), which is responsible for providing architectural oversight and focuses on long-range planning and coordination among the various areas. When members are interested in starting a new WG, they can form a "Birds of a Feather" (BOF) session. This is taken from the saying, "Birds of a feather flock together." If the BOF gathers sufficient interest and is thought to be working on a useful and solvable problem, a WG is formed.

WGs do most of their work using the e-mail distribution list. They meet three times a year for face-to-face meetings. Usually, a participant submits an Internet draft (ID) containing a solution for any of the WG's work items. The ID is discussed and its contents are agreed on by rough consensus. A WG may merge multiple solutions for different issues or the same issue into a WG ID. When all the issues are addressed, the WG chair calls for a last call for comments on the WG ID. After the comments are successfully addressed, the ID is sent to the IESG. The IESG also issues the last call for comments on the ID, but from all IETF participants . After all the comments are considered , the draft is sent to the request for comments (RFC) editor for publication as an RFC. RFCs are permanent IETF publications available as specifications to the users.

Since the advent of 3GPP and 3GPP2, the cellular industry has shown interest in IETF. The main reason is to reuse the Internet standards unchanged as much as possible. At the same time, the cellular industry desires to work with the IETF community to get solutions of the issues related to IP over wireless. One such example is the development of the radio network to packet data serving node (R-P) interface protocol for 3GPP2 with the Mobile IP WG. IETF formed liaisons with both 3GPP and 3GPP2. The initial reluctance was mainly the IETF working philosophy of honoring individual contributions instead of having an organization-coordinated contribution. The collaboration between 3GPP/3GPP2 and IETF is necessary for developing specifications for IP wireless networks. At the same time, adaptation of Internet protocols by a huge number of cellular devices will also be a success for IETF. The collaboration will bring about knowledge sharing on both sides. IETF WGs will benefit from radio knowledge, so they can consider that in the evolution of Internet. 3GPP/3GPP2 will benefit from the network knowledge and can thus design radios that will work best with IP protocols.

Considering that WLAN technology is similar to Ethernet, it is fair to say that wireless LAN was always in consideration as a link technology to the IETF community. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has already held few BOFs in IETF. Bluetooth is an IP-based ad hoc personal area network (PAN) technology. (It is the objective of the BOFs to get leverage from the IETF expertise to accelerate the design of Bluetooth IP networking.)

In addition to the liaisons and BOFs, there is a lot of focus inside IETF on developing protocols/recommendations that are also friendly to different wireless technology. Individuals from 3GPP, 3GPP2, Bluetooth, and the WLAN industry are working in different WGs to get solutions that would help in bringing IP to their technologies. Examples of such WGs are Performance Implications of Link Characteristics (PILC), Seamless Mobility (SEAMOBY), Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANET), Mobile IP, Zero Configuration Networks (ZeroConf), and Robust Header Compression (ROHC). This trend will increase due to the open nature of IETF.