The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is looking for a new chairman to direct the work of the standards organization 2021. Surprisingly, two representatives of the Chinese research company Futurewei are now applying for the spot – Futurewei is a subsidiary of the network supplier Huawei.

That is already spicy because Huawei is promoting a completely new Internet architecture at the same time as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which the IETF doesn’t like at all. But the application by the Futurewei employees mainly attracts attention because of the US government’s ban on the parent company Huawei.

The Futurewei employees are Alvaro Retana and Barry Leiba. Retana, formerly a Cisco engineer, is now Vice President Strategy for Future Networks and is jointly responsible for work on “New IP”, a collection of drafts to replace the Internet standard TCP / IP. Leiba belonged to IBM for many years and has been working for Huawei since 2009.

Controversial New IP development According to Huawei and Futurewei, New IP is needed because TCP / IP is not powerful enough for demanding new applications. At the edge of the current IETF 109, Huawei New IP is serving the IETF developers for the fourth time. So far, IETF participants had given the concept, which is now called Future Vertical Communications Networks (FCVN), the cold shoulder.

As a long-time IETF participant and as the author of numerous RFC specifications in the e-mail The US-American Leiba is well connected in the IETF. It will be exciting to see whether the nomination committee will forgive him for his sponsor’s New IP plans.

Many candidates The nomination committee could stay away from political waters by choosing one of the other applicants. The list of candidates includes two IETF veterans: the Brit Adrian Farrel, author of many MPLS-relevant specifications, and Fred Baker, a former Cisco engineer. Baker even presided over from 1996 to 2002 the IETF.

Perhaps there is also the first German-born IETF chief. Because among the somewhat younger candidates is Rich Salz from Akamai and AT&T routing expert Deborah Brungard, as well as Lars Eggert. Eggert, a networking expert at NetApp, can claim that he headed the IETF’s research sister, the Internet Research Task Force, for several years. In addition, the electoral fin is working on the TCP alternative Quic. The decision for the next chair is made at the beginning 2021.

(dz)