My NANOG92/ARIN54 Experience

In the final weeks of October, I took a trip to Toronto to attend NANOG92 and ARIN54. This was my first time attending either event in person. I've long been aware of NANOG through it's mailing list, and in my career I've had plenty of interaction with ARIN. I'm apprised of ARIN's policy development through various sources, and I have read some of the meeting minutes.

I interact with ARIN on a regular basis, and from an operational perspective, I am an expert on the operational role they play as an RIR. How they support RPKI, IRR and WHOIS, I'm plenty familiar with. Until recently, I hadn't been privy to the processes that govern ARIN as an organization, and how that impacts the internet as a whole.

This year, I was able to attend the in person meeting as an 'ARIN Fellow'. What I've found to be a wonderful program for myself, and undoubtly for anyone else at any stage in their career.

As a smaller network operator, it's easy to be unaware about the things happening behind the scenes to keep a massive project like the internet working. Technicians who make use of standards put in place by organizations like ARIN, the NRO, ICANN, the IETF, and similar, may use these standards everyday and not know their origin. If you've heard of these meetings, you may not be aware of what exactly happens behind those doors.

That was me. From what I had gathered about ARIN meetings, there would be a decent group of IP resource holders and IP resouce users present. My business partners had always thought attending one of these would be a great place to meet prospective IP resource leasing clients. While I did meet quite a few people, I did find NANOG to be the spot to grow business connections.

I had been wanting to attend these conferences, though the cost and travel involved usually put it on the back burner for me. Funny enough, I had thought the ARIN fellowship consisted of solely a $350 stipend, and some education when applying. I expected to have to burden my business with the travel expense. I found out after selection, that ARIN covered everything and would send me to NANOG too :O

The ARIN fellows receive a great deal of primers, and education prior to the meeting. There is a mentor pairing among the group with members of the advisory council. I think this is great. It comes coupled with weekly sessions leading up to the meeting. I learned quite a bit from these sessions, and definitely feel like they helped me enter the meeting with an understanding of what would be happening. That helped me focus on gaining insight from those in the gathering. I wouldn't have to be asking questions about what was going on, and I had time to prepare some thoughts, questions and answers.

The biggest piece of advice I can give to someone attending one of these conferences is, don't be a wallflower. Coming from a small business, where I'm the technical lead and there aren't many other likeminded people in my office, this was a great week. It didn't last long enough. It was amazing to meet so many intelligent engineers, and likeminded people. At NANOG, I made it my goal to meet as many relevant people as possible. It was tough, because the community is so great surrounding these groups.

I don't think I've ever enjoyed socializing as much in my life as I did at NANOG/ARIN. I made some great friends, and great business connections. I'm left with a feeling I have more to learn, and more to see from these groups. If you've ever thought about attending one of these meetings, just do it. If you can get the fellowship, and think you'll learn from it, do it.

If you plan to socialize, and just walk up to people, you'll have the best time. No need to be shy. Just start the conversation and you'll have some great experiences. I was able to get lunch with Daniel Sheppard, a maintainer of Netbox, a tool that is vital to our business, and have a great dialog about some of our use cases. I approached Jonathan Black, the Director of NANOG, who I would imagine would have been very busy. He took the time to show me and Viput the Toronto PATH, and gave us some good insight at the Hockey Hall of Fame. I'm very grateful these experiences, they were uniquely uplifting for me, and the energy of the place was constant like that.

Above all, the people you meet there can turn out to be some of the best connections you'll have business, casual or otherwise. I was lucky enough to make friends with an attendee who flew 30 hours from Thailand to attend. His name was Viput, and he worked with a large IP resource company. He introduced me to his CEO, who gave me some great insight and arguments to take back to my leadership ;) - Viput and I did a lot of networking together, and backed eachother up in conversation. An incredibly genuine person, who left a lasting impression on me, and I hope we can meet again.

This was the kickoff to a long journey and commitment to these communities for me. The level of knowledge, experience, energy and invigoration you can gain from these events, from the fellowship program, is unmatched. I look forward to my future involvement, and continued participation.