Driving into the Future ~ Chris Grundemann

Happy New Year!

It’s that time of year when many of us turn a major page on our calendar, reflect on the past revolution around the sun, and consider things to come. I find this a healthy and productive exercise in most cases, perhaps especially right now as I find my footing in this new position and the whole team prepares for our best year yet.

The Past

What an amazing journey already! While I just came aboard a few months ago, the Deploy360 team has been hard at work since around December of 2011 – when this site was launched. Since that time we’ve written over 500 blog posts and added more than 100 pages of deployment and operationalization content. Not bad for just getting started. Of course, there’s more to Deploy360 than this growing web portal. We’re out there on social media (connect with us!) and in the real world too. We’ve hosted ten (10) ION Conferences around the globe to date, including stops in Singapore, Krakow, and Toronto in 2013. If you’re not yet familiar, ION Conferences bring network engineers and leading industry experts together to help network operators stay ahead of the curve understanding and deploying emerging Internet technologies, and discussing the future of the Internet with the people who help craft it. On top of our own ION events, many team members often give talks in other fora, on our topics of IPv6 and DNSSEC, as well as on topics within our Routing resiliency and security theme. One of the new areas our team took on in 2013 was BCOP – Best Current Operational Practices, and we’ve seen great strides made in that space already.

For me, the best part of Deploy360 is that everything we do is targeted at accelerating the deployment and operationalization of key standards and technologies, speeding innovation and economic growth, and increasing security on the Internet. No products to sell, no alternative agendas, no distractions. We have the extreme pleasure of working on behalf of the Internet itself, every day! So I’m super excited about all of our 2013 successes not because I’m proud of Deploy360, but because I’m proud of the community which has grown up around Deploy360 – that’s right, I’m talking about you! Our little team of four could never have accomplished any of this without the content authors, the ION speakers, the BCOP volunteers, the subject matter experts, the social media evangelists, the folks who read our content, and the folks who share it. Thank you all for your time and efforts, for your engagement, for caring, and for being a part of this Deploy360 community!

The Future

The ride is certainly not over yet! Not by a long shot. We have a lot of big things planned for 2014, and we’ll need your help to pull it all off. =)

IPv6 and DNSSEC

First things first, we’ll be staying the course with IPv6 and DNSSEC. If you’re interested in developing content, let us know! We’ll be working to add informational resources such as practical how-to’s, real-world case-studies, and targeted guidelines throughout the year. Some of this will be links to existing content but most will be new documents, videos, slides, and more. Our IPv6 efforts will be primarily focused around the 2nd anniversary of World IPv6 Launch this June 6th. For you IPv6 experts reading this, we’ll need you to help us create content and identify additional contributors in the first half of the year. IPv6 deployments are multiplying and growing but there is plenty left to do!

DNSSEC is still a bit earlier in the deployment cycle than IPv6 but with the renewed interest in privacy and security online, my hope is that more folks will realize what we’ve been saying all along; this is a key Internet technology which will make all of our lives better once it’s fully deployed and in use (especially in combination with DANE). Watch for new resources here, or help us create them, and look for us at the DNS-ORC meetings (wherever they pop up) or of course at the DNSSEC Workshops held with every ICANN as well.

Routing Resiliency & Security

We are, however, planning some changes in our coverage of the routing resiliency and security space. This is a topic area that we believe deserves a bit more attention than it’s been getting, both within Deploy360 and out on the open Internet. So keep an eye out for the launch of two new topics within the Routing theme in the first half of 2014: “Securing BGP” and “Anti-Spoofing.”

Our new Securing BGP topic will focus mainly on route filtering and BGP session security – the practical basics of securing BGP. While this may feel to some as an “old” or “elementary” technology topic compared to many of our others, we believe that the failure for so many network operators to put these basic technologies into practice is exactly the kind of problem we can, and should, help with.
In the same vein, Anti-Spoofing is meant to be a highly targeted topic focused on creating material to help folks finally deploy and operationalize some acceptable level of anti-spoofing on their networks, likely á la BCP 38.

All of these new topics are meant to be clear, concise, and actionable. Feel free to contact us regarding these new topics now, or once they have launched officially – just like with IPv6 and DNSSEC, it’s your involvement that will make these topics, and thus these technologies, a success.

SSL/TLS and IP Communications

And as if that were not enough, we’re even going to be launching two more topics in 2014!

IP Communications will be focused on the impending transition from a legacy PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) to an all-IP, VoIP-based solution. While this transition started several years ago in much of the Internet-connected world, and has been moving along well for the most part, we are now quickly approaching several official national government deadlines for shutting off the PSTN in those countries. Deploy360 is primarily concerned with what this means from a policy and regulation standpoint, and we’ll be looking to provide new resources illustrating the technical realities of this transition to help ensure that laws and other regulation can keep pace – or at least not get in the way.

Another new topic, SSL/TLS, will be focused on developers and providing them with the information they need to write more secure Internet applications.

ION Conferences

The ION series of conferences will continue in 2014 of course, with events in the UK, Latin America, and either Asia or Africa. One thing will be new for next year however: Sponsorship! Yep, we are opening the IONs up to sponsors who want to support our work; contact us for more information. Nothing else will change however – the same level of high caliber speakers, the same focus on practical deployment and operationalization content, and the same streaming and recording options for the folks not able to be in the room with us. IONs will remain the fun and interactive cornerstone of Deploy360’s work they have always been, now with a few new topics thrown in. I hope to see you at at least one this year!

Best Current Operational Practices & Operators at the IETF

We’ll also be continuing to branch out beyond the bounds of our Deploy360 programme this year with both our ongoing BCOP and just-starting Operators at the IETF efforts. Building on the initial enthusiasm we’ve seen all around the world in 2013, we’re excited to continue supporting the global network engineering community throughout 2014. With BCOP groups having been formed by the operator communities in four out of five major regions of the world, we will initially focus on facilitating the creation of a fifth BCOP group in the Asia-Pacific region. We’ll be there to help every step of the way. We’ll also be circling back to the four existing/forming groups to help keep the momentum going! BCOP topics, shepherds, and subject matter experts are all needed – from every area of expertise and every area of the world.

Separate and distinct from BCOP, we will also be kick-starting our work to bring more operational input into the IETF. We think that having more folks with real-world, practical know-how engaged in the IETF could only be a good thing. As a first step along this path, we will be conducting an approximately six-month long study to investigate and really dig into why many operators do not pay more attention to the IETF today. Look for us at NOGs and other meetings, or fill out our online survey; we want to hear from you!

Speaking Engagements

Finally, we’ll continue getting out and speaking on all of the Deploy360 topics as often as we can. In 2014 we’ll be looking for new events to be a part of, as well as hitting many of our old favorites. Keep an eye here on our blog to learn where we’ll be when – and feel free to send us any suggestions for conferences or other events you think we should consider attending.