[Chapter-delegates] IETF gets Blogged

[Mark Thalhimer]

>From the GigaOM blog...   http://gigaom.com/


Two Tech Events, Two Different Worlds
Stacey Higginbotham, Thursday, March 6, 2008 at 5:50 AM PT Comments (3)

This Friday marks the beginning of South by Southwest in Austin, starting
with the Interactive Festival. Every year, geeks galore descend on my
hometown, only to be replaced by filmmakers and then musicians. The geeks
are my favorites, but you knew I'd say that.

As a reporter I look forward to the event, and as a resident I bemoan the
lack of parking downtown, the full restaurants and the deluge of hipsters
alternately making plans to move here or dissing the place for its
provincialism. This year's interactive lineup has an impressive array of
companies who have built their business on the web, from Yahoo and Google to
startups such as Facebook and MOG.

And 1,700 miles away in the colder climate of Philadelphia, about 1,200
network engineers will gather to perform the less-celebrated task of making
sure the Internet keeps humming along. The Internet Engineering Task Force
is holding one of its thrice-annual meetings to talk about the transition to
IPv6, the problem of building faster routers when there's ever more routing
information to take into consideration, and a host of other issues relating
to the core of the Internet.

Listening to Jari Arkko, an area director for the IETF, talk about the goals
at this IETF meeting, it struck me how much the Internet has changed
technology. I'm very much a hardware geek, in love with data center
infrastructure, networking and chips, so I am now amazed at what a
technology company can do without this level of engineering.

In the early days of the Internet, many of these technology firms had to at
least figure out their data center architectures and how they would deliver
and support their online shopping sites or web auction houses. But thanks to
hosted services, that's less important today. You no longer have to be a
techie to start a technology company.

This is great for the billions of people using the Internet to access
services and content, and speaks to the maturity of the web. However, it's
important to give credit where credit is due. So while the technology
companies attending SXSW are slamming down the drinks and hobnobbing with
the digerati, let's take a moment to toast the engineers who make it all
possible. And for those network engineers in Philly, it's Beer Week up there
next week, so sneak out of those plenary sessions and toss one back. Hack
into my online bank account, and it's on me.


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Mark Thalhimer
Director of Communications and Public Relations
INTERNET SOCIETY
 
thalhimer at isoc.org
+1 703 439 2130
 
www.isoc.org
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