Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

[Note: this page is maintained by OBJS and not IETF. It is meant to provide a quick overview of the IETF (mission, scope, and organization) and how these relate to OMG. IETF is the organization most involved in creating Internet standards and OMG is the organization most involved in object technology standards. At issue is, how can these communities interoperate as OO and Internet technologies begin to merge.]


Table of Contents

IETF Mission

How IETF Operates (in comparison to OMG)

Areas and Working Groups

Internet Protocols


IETF Mission

IETF provides a forum for working groups to coordinate technical development and selection of the Internet protocol suite (collection of de facto standards). Begun in 1986 as a forum for technical coordination by U.S. DoD contractors working on ARPANET and related DoD networks, IETF is now a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the architecture, evolution, and smooth operation of the global Internet. IETF meets three times a year. Most of the work is done off-line.

Relevant WWW home pages are:

Internet files may be obtained from several sites including ds.internic.net via anonymous ftp. Send email to ietf-info@cnri.reston.va.us with general inquiries about IETF. Send email ietf-announce-request@cnri.reston.va.us to get on the moderated email exploder to learn about announcements (meeting logistics, agendas, RFC announcements, and Internet-Draft announcements) or ietf-request@cnri.reston.va.us to get on the main IETF discussion exploder. Discussions is very active. Prepare to be swamped. The -request lists are human-moderated.


How IETF Operates (in comparison to OMG)

IETF and OMG share similarities and differences:


Areas and Working Groups

The work of IETF is divided into areas, each of which is further divided into working groups (WGs) and birds of a feather (BOFs). During a 5-day long meeting three times a year, working groups meet, usually for 2-4 hours each, to review progress and proposals on highlights of work items that they are responsible for. Perhaps 500-700 people attended the IETF meeting in Dallas in December 1995. Several sessions were broadcast over MBONE.

To provide a sense of the IETF landscape, we provide a list of current (as of December 1995) IETF areas and the working groups within those areas (listed below). Some possible OMG - IETF liaisons are (very tentatively) listed in [...].


Internet Protocols

IETF protocols are accessible from the descriptions of the Area and Working Groups (above) or via the Internet Drafts index or RFC index .


This research is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and managed by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory under contract DAAL01-95-C-0112. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, or the United States Government.

© Copyright 1996 Object Services and Consulting, Inc. Permission is granted to copy this document provided this copyright statement is retained in all copies. Disclaimer: OBJS does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information on this page.

This page was written by Craig Thompson. Send questions and comments about it to thompson@objs.com.

Last updated: 04/22/96 7:15 PM

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