Re: [arch-d] Musings on Internet evolution

[Jari Arkko <[e-mail]>]

Bill,

> I assume you saw this:   http://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/keeping-the-internet-up-and-running-in-times-of-crisis-4017c4c9/
> 
> We had quite a lot of expert input which didn’t make it into the report, as well, which I can summarize, if people are interested.

Thanks for this - I had actually not seen that before. Very useful.

One observation that I have heard from many who have been involved in practical day-to-day Internet businesses is that while the user experience may be relatively smooth, that doesn’t mean that nothing needed to be done. A *lot* of work has happened behind the scenes, capacity added, issues addressed, things moved, calls made, etc. etc.

> From my point of view, I think the most interesting finding is that this is the end of network-to-network (i.e. routed subnet) VPNs for home-office situations.  While that was supportable for a few executives, it doesn’t work if most of your workforce is WFH

Ok.

> One of the big positives in the “new normal” has been the democratization of Internet governance meetings…  My colleagues Sara Alamin and Gaël Hernandez have a brief article coming out shortly on that topic.  When meetings happen online, they’re less dominated by people from countries which issue each other travel visas and which have inexpensive and frequent air travel between each other.  That’s good news, in a more-eyes-on-the-problem sense, and in a design-that-works-better-for-everybody-works-better-for-everybody sense.

Yes, that has been very good!

> The main conclusion I’ve been seeing people draw from the Zoom situation is that we’ve passed some sort of tipping-point of ridiculousness in the everything-as-a-service, in-the-cloud shitshow, and that governments, particularly, need to get back to a point where they’re capable of standing on their own feet and operating the services they need, using code they’re familiar with.  So, good news for open-source and open-standards, if people pay attention to that.

I certainly hope so. (Cautiously optimistic but lets see in few years.)

Anyway, I think this has been a part of a more general realisation in the society, e.g., critical supplies and services availability. And it applies to companies as well, not just governments. Business continuity.

Jari