RE: Preliminary London dates/times

[Black_David@emc.com]

> There are no "FC" related topics, because there is a T11 (FC) meeting
going on
> the same week.  All "FC" related discussion was moved to a different
meeting.
> Why not move *all* IPS meetings to that meeting, and not have any IPS
meetings
> during IETF?

I share some of Matt's frustration with the London logistics -
between the T11 conflict, the London location making corporate travel
restrictions harder to deal with, and the Monday to Friday gap between
the currently scheduled IPS sessions, this is a distinct step down from
what we've gotten used to from the past two IETF meetings.  As John
noted, I've been trying to do something about the Monday to Friday
gap between meeting sessions - something will either happen or not
n the next few days as the meeting slot assignments become final.
I've been keeping this quiet because publicly bashing the overworked
staff at the IETF secretariat is generally not productive (e.g., want
to try to hold an IPS WG meeting in a closet?).

One of the reasons for IETF meeting weeks is that there are issues
that span working groups and areas in the IETF - for IPS and iSCSI,
these include security, framing, and discovery, just to name three
issues that we're actively working on.  Having people with expertise
and experience in these related topics in the same place at the
same time is conducive to making progress on them.  This is
considered to be crucially important by those with some familiarity
with the IETF (including yours truly) and pays off regularly,
sometimes in ways that one would not expect in advance. 
Remember that it's not just up to the visibly active members of
the IPS WG to decide what goes into our RFCs - we have IPS
WG Last Call, IETF Last Call, and IESG Approval to go through,
and wider exposure of what we're doing helps get technical
issues identified and raised earlier in the standards development
process.

Also, FWIW ... if we cancel the IPS meetings in London, the ADs
will cancel the August interim meeting for us, leaving us in a
position of having to beg for one 2-2.5 hour slot in Salt Lake
in December. Needless to say, that's not a desirable outcome.

Thanks,
--David

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David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 42 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
+1 (508) 435-1000 x75140     FAX: +1 (508) 497-8500
black_david@emc.com       Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
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