NANOG67 - Tipping point of community and sponsor bashing?

Fri Jun 17 08:20:32 UTC 2016

> On Jun 16, 2016, at 06:03 , Ca By <cb.list6 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Perhaps it is me and my sensibilities, perhaps it  is my miser corp culture, but i could not even dream of asking to go to Jamaica (arin area) for the last ARIN meeting. 

You are entitled to your opinion.

If ARIN didn’t exist, how would you go about guaranteeing unique registered GUA blocks and ASNs? Who would operate whois and in-addr.arpa, ip6.arpa?

As to Jamaica, as you point out, it’s in the ARIN region. We really have two choices there… One, we can avoid the caribbean and do a disservice to our community members there, or, two, we can occasionally (usually about once out of every 4 meetings) meet in the Caribbean.

Do you really think that our members in the Caribbean should be excluded from having the possibility of a local meeting simply because they happen to live in a popular vacation spot?

If you don’t think that having the meeting in the Caribbean serves our Caribbean community members, you’re flat out wrong. There were many attendees present from the Caribbean region who have not been able (either for financial, Visa, or other reasons) to attend our meetings in the US and Canada.

While you might want to make the argument against holding the meeting at a resort destination, the reality is that there alternatives in the Caribbean region that can accommodate a meeting and the number of hotel rooms needed by a group our size are few and far between. Most of the facilities that have adequate facilities ARE resorts.

> 
> I am not alone. Have a look at Ren's comments from
> 
> http://research.dyn.com/2006/02/lovely-peering-cruise-on-lake/ <http://research.dyn.com/2006/02/lovely-peering-cruise-on-lake/>
> 
> Posted here:
> "
> The Peering Forum is more for peer & IX information distribution and contact refresh across a multi-continent body of participants than it is for initial trial concerns. The invite only nature implies the attendees are actively peering at one or more of the IXs sponsoring portions of the Forum. Many of us, hand raised here, are taking vacation time, covering flights, upgraded cabins, etc. to help remove the conflict of interest concerns. It is unfortunate there is not a link to the agenda as it is jam packed with useful peering focused presentations and more than qualifies this as a business need. Last year dozens of participants interacted for the first time and I’m looking forward to similar introductions later this month. Putting a face to the name helps significantly in this very relationship based role which has more to do with international relations than enable.”

What you are leaving out here is that IIRC, Ren was one of the people behind the original idea of having things like Peering Cruises. Frankly, if you want to have a concentrated focused meeting, a cruise can be a very cost-effective approach, where you can cover meeting rooms, hotel rooms, meals, etc. for less per person than the cost of a hotel room in some cities in the US that I suspect you’d consider perfectly acceptable. (NYC, ORD, SFO, SJC, LAX to name just a few)

> I am not willing to fork over my pto or personal cash to "remove the conflict of interest" . I'd rather buy transit. 

I’m not sure what this supposed COI is.

> And, i am also not willing to spend my corp money with dec-ix or others to send my competitors on a cruise. Unless …

Well… I’m unaware of DE-CIX providing cruises at their expense, so I’m not sure where that comes from. Perhaps I missed out somewhere. Wouldn’t surprise me.

> why cant this just be business? 

Why can’t it be just business on a cruise? Who says that business has to be a windowless conference room in a city with little or no appeal to tourists?

> That said, i have never been on a peering cruise and all my peering needs are met with peeringdb and email. So it is just business for me, and no i am not going to spend money at an IX that does not see things the way i do. 

I’m happy for you, but you aren’t exactly what I would call a major backbone. I’m pretty sure you have to buy transit from at least one or two major backbones to deal with your networking needs. Are you so certain that those major backbones that you pay didn’t need in person meetings to get some of their peering arrangements done? Are you so sure that there are not significant swaths of internet infrastructure (including much of the state of the art in IXPs today) that didn’t develop and evolve largely in these collaborative environments?

You have the luxury of using the tools that others have built to meet your peering needs. You talk about your use of peeringdb… I’m pretty sure that the origin of peeringdb can be traced back to people talking together at some of these fora that you consider non-business for reasons passing understanding.

This isn’t an all-business focus question or even a miserly question.

It’s purely an optics question. If you want to live in fear of the optics, go for it. I, for one, prefer to look at “what will this cost? what is the value my company can get from it?” If the latter is greater than or equal to the former, then it’s probably worth making the case to management. Otherwise, I usually don’t even attempt it.

YMMV

Owen