It's quite a news now that IIESOC is hosting "Connections 2018" - a Pre-IETF 103 forum in Bangalore on October 31st - Novemeber 1st 2018, in order to bring together protocol developers, academicians and network operators on a common platform and share the hurdles in the way to free and open Internet by mutual collaboration. This event is primarily focused on India and Indian contributions to the Internet.
This blog is part of the speaker series that introduces the various amazing speakers who would be appearing during the event. Next in the series is Abhijan Bhattacharyya.
Bio: Abhijan Bhattacharyya is presently serving as a scientist in Network Embedded Infrastructure Research Area, TCS Research, Tata Consultancy Services, Kolkata, India. He has been serving the industry for 15 years. His current areas of interest are network protocols for IoT, machine intelligence enabled low-latency communication, 5G communication, etc. In the past he has provided technical leadership to several critical projects in India and abroad on implementation of contemporary digital wireless communication protocols for wireless test equipments used by some global leaders in mobile communication. He has several international publications and granted patents. He is also a visiting faculty of Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. At present he is playing a lead role in representing his organization in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). He has led the first ever contribution of TCS to IETF Standard in the form of "RFC 7967". He has been a fellow under the NextGen Leadership Program of Internet Society. He has also actively participated in the efforts to spread awareness on IETF in India through initiatives supported by Ministry of Electronics and IT, Govt. of India.
Talk in IoT Track: IoT Standardization: Setting the context for India
In this talk we shall touchbase the following questions * Why Internet of 'Things' needs a special treatment in the context of evolution of the Internet that we have witnessed. * What are the different configurations in IoT. * Why standardization is important and how IETF plays a pivotal role. * Some of the key IoT issues under standardization spot-light in IETF. * Internet standardization and India: where are we? * IoT as a "horizontal" driver for finding solutions for digital divide in India. * Some of the contributions to IETF from our organization. * Standardization through indigenous efforts - how to approach the problem space?
Checkout other talks at - https://www.connections.iiesoc.in/abstract
We also asked Abhijan a few questions regarding his IETF contributions and involvement.
1. How did you get involved in the IETF? Was there a particular issue that led to your involvement? IETF has been a self-discovery and a great self-learning experience for me. Traditionally my work environment was not much sensitized about IETF processes and, specially, there was not much idea about the open and democratic nature of IETF.
Back in 2011-12 we were trying to solve some real-life business problem. We realized that the problem that we are trying to solve is actually under the realm of the problem statements behind the new buzzword “Internet of Things”. So we started to survey about the ongoing efforts in the IoT protocol area. That time Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) was at its nascent stage and was maturing version by version. We started to follow the progress in the mailing list and along with this we also realized the IETF processes. Then in 2012 March I represented my organization in Paris IETF. The purpose was to physically understand the processes of this open SDO and get a hold on the future directions.
By mid of 2013 we submitted our 1st IETF draft and presented in Vancouver IETF in November 2013. Subsequently, in August 2016, this became our first ever RFC (RFC 7967) after a long sustained effort with lot of patience and perseverance. 2. What is your opinion on the importance of the IETF in the Internet eco-system?
IETF is playing a pivotal role in the Internet ecosystem. While other important SDOs like IEEE and 3GPP are creating the standards that are defining how signals should travel over the media (Physical and MAC layers), they do need IETF standards to finally be able to communicate over the Internet to access the remote high level business logics. IETF is currently the main organization which is bridging the gap between “below the application and above the wire”. 3. What technical changes do you see coming in the next few years?
I think, in general, the 5G vision is going to pull up quite a bit of innovation at the Internet protocol layers. A thrust can be already witnessed in reducing the latency across the stack. Also, with the realization of Quantum Computing, quantum safety should more and more become an important clause in security considerations.
Another aspect would be the application of Machine Learning algorithms in making the communication protocols more robust. This may impact the edge centric communication models. But it is yet to be understood, what exactly is to be standardized in this paradigm. 4. What are some of the most interesting changes you have seen at the IETF? I feel that the interest in research groups (RG) have increased over the years. Also, there has been an overall consistent growth in terms of democratic spirit and acceptance of ideas. 5. What would be your advice for a new commer from the sub-continent, on how to get involved?
Identify typical areas of your interest. Subscribe to the relevant mailing lists. It is even better if you can identify a typical use case from your own geography as a son of the soil. See what technologies exist and what people are contributing to augment the book-of-protocol-knowledge. To start with you can post your opinions in an on-going discussion in the mailing list. Ask questions without shying. Review a draft and get used to draft writing styles. Post your comments / questions on the drafts. If you sound logically good, you may become a co-author and contribute to an ongoing draft. If you have some novel ideas that serves a practical purpose which could not be solved by existing/ proposed technologies, write a draft and submit. Respond to mailing-list queries. You may register for remote participation to watch the live proceedings remotely if travelling is not possible.
Don't miss this opportunity to join us for the event. The tickets for the event are available at - https://www.connections.iiesoc.in/tickets