Subject: Minneapolis terminal room

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 18:13:23 -0500

Sometimes I think we expect too much.

The terminal room is essential. Many IETF participants cannot be away 
for a week without Internet access, and without the terminal room the 
hotel phone switch probably could not keep up with the traffic.

However, I never cease to be amazed at the level of service expected
by IETF meeting attendees.  We expect laptop ports and workstations and 
printers for both paper and transparencies with large amounts of each, 
all provided "for free".  We expect DNS, DHCP, ethertalk, WINS, lpd,
CIFS printing, ssh, and probably a few more random services.  We expect 
wireless LAN with devices provided and good coverage within the hotel.  
We expect mbone access, even though it doesn't seem to be very useful.

We seem to forget that this is a non-profit organization with limited
resources, and that the terminal room facilities are provided by the
host.  Personally, I'm always thankful for the generosity of these hosts,
and their patience at putting up with the endless complaints of IETF.
I'm also thankful for the IETF folks who pitch in to help out or to
add some service beyond the bare mininum.

Perhaps, once every year or two, we should have a "potluck terminal room".
The host would provide a pipe with adequate bandwidth, and a router with
a sufficient number of Ethernet interfaces.  Either the host or the 
secretariat would provide a large room with tables and chairs, and
coordination.  There would be a sign-up list for all remaining services 
and equipment.  Everyone who expects to use the terminal room would be 
expected to contribute *something* - say by bringing a hub, or cables; 
by paying to lease a workstation or printer; by purchasing a ream of 
paper or a box of transparencies; or by showing up early to get things
to fit together.  Those who do would get a colored dot on their nametags.  
In the event of insufficient resources, folks with a dot on their nametags 
could pre-empt those who had not seen fit to contribute.

I realize that this would be a logistical nightmare, but it would at
least serve two purposes: (1) it would make us more aware of our hosts'
generosity for the other IETF meetings, and (2) it would make us more 
aware of how difficult it really is to set up an Internet and perhaps
motivate (more of) us to try to make it easier to do so.

Keith

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From: Dennis Fazio <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 13:31:36 -0600

> Perhaps, once every year or two, we should have a "potluck terminal room".

Somehow this image of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland gathering the
neighborhood kids together to scavange instruments, costumes, lights,
routers, PCs and Cat5 cable to "put on a show" in the local Internet garage
keeps popping into my mind :)

Anyway, we've seen both ends of the spectrum on suggestions: 
1. A full professional crew with all of its significant level of
accountability and expense with a good probability, but not certainty, of
high quality.
2. A do-it-ourselves fully volunteer effort with little accountability and
also little expense to the IETF, but with a good probability, and perhaps
certainty in some minds, of low quality.

The best answer, as usual, is somewhere in between. As one who has had a
large role in doing this job once now, let me offer a suggestion to the
IETF as to where "in between" this could best be.

Though we may want to keep the name for historical reasons, the "Terminal
Room" is really much more than that now. 

(As an interesting aside on the "Terminal Room" name, we may want to be
aware next time if there are any health groups meeting nearby during setup.
There were some curious glances and some comments from a few attendees at a
function of a Lupus group meeting next door Friday night when they saw the
large sign outside the Terminal Room door.)

At any rate, this facility has now become a complex conference network and
document production center upon which a couple thousand users have placed
an expectation of commercial-level quality, quantity, and reliability. This
expectation is justified, because the work being done at these meetings is
critical to a $multi-billion industry. It is not something that can be done
with haphazard volunteer efforts, nor would I suggest, with complete
dependence on a local host who usually doesn't have experience in
constructing and operating both LANs and WANs and Internet service.

However, it can be done with a high level of quality and accountability
without resorting to an expensive professional group. All the IETF need do
is look to its own practices and formalize this part of its activities as
it has done with working groups and areas. One of the keys to success is to
get a single project manager who has experience. This can be a compensated
role, but could also be volunteer. The amount of work is probably not that
much different than an area director, an IAB member, IESG member or working
group chair. The volunteer (with assistants to provide succession) could be
dedicated to this one function.

I think the IETF secretariat needs to take over responsibility for the
Terminal Room. The local host can be called upon to bear the brunt of the
facilities funding and provision of volunteer workers who would be under
the general direction of the Terminal Room Coordinator or his or her
delegates. The coordinator would take care of making sure the room size was
adequate, the layout was done right, power distribution was sufficient,
wiring contractors (professional or volunteer) were assigned, LAN and WAN
design and construction completed, server setup done, application
deployment done, help desk staffed, mbone, wireless, IPv6 facilities
accomodated, etc. etc. 

A combination of a clear set of detailed specifications as to what would be
available in the Terminal Room and what wouldn't be, and in what quantity,
would also go a long way to setting user expectations correctly. The
Terminal Room Coordinator would be the keeper and maintainer of the specs.

The Terminal Room Coordinator would provide the most important assets to
assuring a good experience: continuity. There would now be an ability to
carry on the experience gained and see the growth trends from one meeting
to the next. This could be implemented as an additional part-time staff
position within the IETF Secretariat itself, or as a volunteer with
adequate stature within the IETF structure so as to be worthy of someone
with good organizational skills, attention to detail and
technical/operational knowledge to take it on.

Whether such an arrangement can be put in place in time for Oslo is
questionable, but I've already indicated that I'd be pleased to pass on as
much detail and information as necessary to the Uninet et. al. local hosts
to give them a leg up on the job.
--
Dennis Fazio, MRNet
GabNet: 612-362-5850

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From: Dennis Fazio <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 13:31:36 -0600

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From: Geert Jan de Groot <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 12:26:44 +0100

On Mon, 22 Mar 1999 18:13:23 -0500  Keith Moore wrote:
> coordination.  

I'm not sure how well this is going to work. At the last IETF, I was
one of the persons who loaned a hub so the mbone traffic could be
split off (hi Randy, hi Evi!), I also made available 5 RJ45-RJ45
connector blocks so that people with RJ45 plugs instead of receiptables
could connect.

I only received 3 of these gobblers back (2 are still missing).

I also helped a bit with packing up the PC's and monitors at the end.
At that time, the local host staff is very tired (just like the rest
of us), and those *(& PC's and monitors are *heavy* when you need to
pack a few tables full of 'em. 
I noticed that none of the other IETF attendees helped packing things up;
this is consistent with other IETF teardowns I have seen.

Instead, David and his group received the usual amount of static from
people about stuff not working (the complaints about the NT DHCP server
were justified, I'm not sure about the rest).
All in all, I think that they have done a very good job.

As many people are stuck at the IETF location ('saturday night stay rule'),
I think it would make sense to see if you can help out. Hopefully we
can make it an IETF tradition that there will be a bunch of people
showing up for volunteer help at future IETF's.

Second, I think it would be good if more people would bring laptops, so that
the desktop machines can be phased out. There's a lot of work with those:
obtaining them (loaning, or advance purchases against future expansion
plans), transport, setting them up, software installation, protection,
insurance, energy requirements (energy requirements & heat production of
a table of PC's is not trivial), etc etc etc.
A laptop drop requires much less work and is a *lot* cheaper.

Soo.. 
	"Don't ask what the IETF can do for you, 
	 ask what you can do for the IETF [terminal room]"

Geert Jan

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From: Geert Jan de Groot <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 12:26:44 +0100

Soo.. 

Geert Jan