NANOG: NANOG31 Survey Results

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NANOG31 Survey Results

May 2004 - San Francisco, California

Attendee Survey Results

Please take a moment to fill out our evaluation form.
Your comments and suggestions will help us plan future meetings. Thank you!

Overall, was this NANOG useful to you? (choose one)
Very useful (52) Useful (110) No opinion (7) Not very useful (6) Useless (0)

If you have attended a previous NANOG, how does this NANOG compare?
Better (40) About the same (67) Worse (11) N/A (52)

How did you like the program (the Monday-Tuesday General Session)?

The choice of topics was:
Well Chosen (45) 1 (102) 2 (25) 3 (8) 4 (2) 5 Poorly Chosen

The level of detail in the presentations was:
Excellent (27) 1 (97) 2 (35) 3 (9) 4 (0) 5 Unsatisfactory

The speakers were:
Excellent (25) 1 (96) 2 (33) 3 (14) 4(2) 5 Unsatisfactory

Please give us your comments on the program.
If you're commenting on a specific talk, be sure to note the title and speakers's name.

A couple of presenters were very difficult to follow, especially Udo from C&W, and Zhang Shu from Japan. While they both spoke English quite well, they had heavy accents which made their voice monotonous. This isn't a problem for some speakers, who manage this issue by using techniques to "re-synchronise" the audience such as cues in the slide material. However, they didn't and it became way too easy to drift-off and lose attention during their presentation. Udo particularly suffers from bad nerves during presentations, as I have seen this strike him before now with much smaller audiences. One of his colleagues should have been presenting that work to a large conference. Nice peering section, with well chosen and relevant topics, although rather time constrained - as there were plenty of questions for both talks. Peering is an operational issue, yet some of the program committee see fit to squeeze it quite heavily.

About 3 interesting talks interspersed with uninteresting presentations. Much worse than the last NANOG I attended. IPv6, routing registry related talks were interesting.

after all this time we're all pretty smart, why can't the speakers' slides be ready? we fumble too much with laptops and displays.

all good!!! Excellent!!

Almost everything was extremely dry and boring. Next time I think I'll just stay at the hotel, meet up with friends for social networking, and not bother with the conference.

As my first time at NANOG, it was a very satisfying experience. Most of that talk were very good. A little bit more talks on IPv6 the state of its deployment would have been interresting

as usual quality of presentations variesawidely-overall, they're getting better

Asside from Udo Steinegger, who was terrible, I thought all of the presentations were providing good information and decent speakers.

be wary of unsubstantiated assertions( Norton's talk) Maybe a little pre-conf reviewing

bgp wedgie by Randy and inter-domain negotiation by Washington univ., seem impressed very useful. they're closer topics to me, intra/inter domain bgp operator.

Bill Norton evolution of US Peering Ecosystem

Bill Norton's talk on peering was excellent. He is a good speaker and the talk was well planned. On the other hand, Matthew F. Ringel's talk was poor. The topic was dull and was poorly delivered.

Boeing talk was cool

BPG heavy, need more variety, space out topics

BPG tutorial(sunday) best thing this year verifying wide-area routing configs (Nick Feamster IPv6 threat (?) Network (?) panel- IPV6

good mix of presentation topics

Good mix of presentations and presenters. Format invites discussion and opinions.

Great Speakers: Randy Bush, Bill Norton,Abarbanel,Hares,Herdaker, Miller Poor: Shu, Steinegger

happy packets, Randy Bush totally useless

I majored in the Social Sciences. If I wanted to still be hearing about Game Theory and Classical Economic Theory, then I wouldn't be doing networking. :-)

I was disappointed to hear that Avi Freeman was asked to leave. He wasn't attending the sessions, he was in the hallway trying to socialize. Who cares who is in the hallway?

Interconnecting MPLS networks-very good topic. More on MLPS deployments/experiences please. Implementing global network mobility with BGP- excellent tiic and Q&A session, good presentation. More on such new services. Little value in BGP standards

Liked Randy Bush's talks and found the airplane/Boeing presentation very appropriate for this audience which travels a lot.

Mandy Waj excellent UDO- so-so could have had some discussion of NOW MPLS compares/contrasts with IGP/BPG. perhaps a tutorial on how MPLS fits in the big picture. Benjamin- very interesting, Bill Norton - very interesting and (?) can't read this.

Monday talks lacked detail and supporting data. The topics were interesting however without more substance they fail to say much. Many of Monday's speakers should have been better prepared to talk even though there were small issues outside their control. This is both my opinion and heard from many other attendees. Tuesday's talks were much better and provided balance to the overall experience.

most were great but a couple were poor

much better hotel than MIAMI

Nice Monday programme, especially enjoyed the Boeing presentation. The MPLS presentation preceeding it was incomprehensible and poorly organised.

Nick Feamster's presentation did not need to be on the agenda.

overall program and agenda was outstanding. Only comment is I would like another session or two on security/network defence topics. Understand there were several security related topics but the topic I would like to hear about how other (?) are implimenting security and ISP< and hwo well it works.

people should rehearse their presentation before they are presenting. Boeing and CISCO's presenters ere well prepared. They should be set as the example to follow

Randy Bush's asininity eclipses his usefulness as a speaker

Randy is always interesting. The mobile internet by conexion was great, as well as Bill Norton, but poor Udo was having a tough time and I felt his pain. In future sessions, it might be a good idea to somehow not include speakers with such language bariers; if that's possible. I don't know, just an idea. Overall all topics were very good.

some speakers had poor presentations skill, please don't read to us

The boeing talk or should I say "read" was pretty poor. For the rest, I'm hearing very little operational content. Mostly research, which while interesting, doesn't buy me much

The breadth and range of the talks were very good. I especially liked the Boeing mobile networking talk and the "history of peering in the US" talk.

The overall quality of presentations were up this NANOG and the technical detail was above average.

The presentations after lunch Monday were almost uniformly awful, with Randy's presentation as the one exception (although the endless series of graphs was a waste of everyone's time). The Boeing marketing presentation was absurd and unacceptable. The persistent A/V snafus didn't help.

The slides shown on the projector did not match the slides on the website for some presentations, either the website slides or the presentor's slides were out of date.

the talks that I enjoyed the least were the ones that addressed some issue of great speciality, but were approached assuming that everyone was whool familiar with terminology. Specificall-Tom Vest- it wouldn't have hurt to descrive "Layer9" and Randy Bush, who could sacrifice short clipped witticisms for more background, detail and examples.

There's a good variety and good grouping of various talks. I really liked the way things were grouped so that we could dip out or be prepared for topics as interests waxed and waned. There seemed to be a lot of BGP focus. (Perhaps just by function of who wanted to present, etc). I think the traffic engineering topics were good. (MPLS - Udo Steinegger/IP over Anything - Blaine Christian) This topic could be an interesting tutorial. To me, as a smaller tier-2 isp - there's definitely some interest in how to go about doing those things and more detail than 'how we did it.'

too many BGP talks- let's move on what the hell was that " wealth of networks" talk about??!! probably good topic, bad presentation

Topics on Monday were not very relevent. Many of the Monday speakers were unprepared.

How did you like the tutorials?

The choice of topic was:
Well Chosen (44) 1 (46) 2 (25) 3 (2) 4 (0) 5 Poorly Chosen

The level of detail in the presentations was:
Excellent (41) 1 (45) 2 (23) 3 (6) 4 (1) 5 Unsatisfactory

The speakers were:
Excellent (47) 1 (38) 2 (24) 3 (4) 4 (1) 5 Unsatisfactory

Please give us your comments on the tutorials.
If you're commenting on a specific talk, be sure to note the title and speakers's name.

A choice of just two tutorials both at introductory or basic level did not leave a lot of options.

another dod for V6 perring and explain the dots on the badge.

Basic stuff is great for newbies, more advanced topics would be welcome

BGP good/comprehensive

BGP- Philip Smith excellent

BGP technique tutorial was excellent

BGP tutorial was great

BPG tutorial-way too boring. The speaker was excellent though. More advanced tutorials, please, and more original topics

Did not attend

Didn't actually attend any this time because of other commitments.

didn't go

Duane Wessels IPSEC work excellent and very much appreciated!

Duane Wessels was superb

I didn't attend any of the tutorials, but supplying an L2TP and IPSEC termination solution at Nanog is an excellent idea. Too bad that I could never connect to the L2TP box.

I especiall enjoyed the peering exosystem by Norton

I only attended the Ipec tutorial, A goood first crack at the problem that will improve with more testing experience

I only went to the BGP tutorial but it was better than expected.

I very much enjoyed Phillip Smith's tutorial, Great job.

IPSEC-system was apparently not well tested before the tutorial but I can't find too much fault, as IPSEC is somewhat more convoluted than it could be---

IS-IS talk was bad. It was not a tutorial on IS-IS, but an overview of new IS-IS advances from a vendor

ISIS update was concise and covered the issues well. Broader vendor knowledge would have been nice.

not attended.

not useful to people beyond entry level

only went to Smith's presentation

Phil and Shankar are very good speakers.

Philip Smith on BGP was excellent and at exactly the right level for me (though maybe too introductory for others?)

Philip Smith's tutorial was excellent. He's a great speaker and covered a lot of good stuff. I look forward to a follow-on that takes the tutorial to the next level (intermediate/advanced).

Shankar (ISIS update) presented a good level of detail for updates.

Smith was a great speaker. He was a good choice.

The BGP talk was very good. The speaker was an effective communicator. I liked how he started with basics instead of diving into complicated material.

The IPSEC implentation tutorial needed more testing/etc.

This is actually a note on the survey... I didn't attend the tutorials, but the survey doesn't have a "not applicable" check box, I still had to rate them so I picked the center box, but if others in this state left the original (highest rating checked), it will bias your results.

How did you like the BOFs?

The choice of topic was:
Well Chosen (51) 1 (37) 2 (19) 3 (1) 4 (1) 5 Poorly Chosen

The level of detail in the presentations was:
Excellent (34) 1 (43) 2 (27) 3 (2) 4 (0) 5 Unsatisfactory

The speakers were:
Excellent (36) 1 (47) 2 (20) 3 (2) 4 (0) 5 Unsatisfactory

Please give us your comments on the BOF.

The BGP talk was very good. The speaker was an effective communicator. I liked how he started with basics instead of diving into complicated material.
Above relates to ISP SEC BOF. They needed more time though.
Again, didn't attend the BOF's, however I'm always happy to see a PGP key signing.
As ever, not enough time for the NSP-SEC BoF. And please can we have the PGP key signing some other time. During a lunch break makes more sense, less likelihood of a clash with over-running BoFs.
BOF's are very useful
BOFs which don't even start until 9pm are difficult to get to for those of us who are local with families...
Did not attend
Did not attend, sorry. Didn't in Chicago either, as I was out drinking. :o)
didn't attend
excellent security bof
hard to cover, going so fast it is hard to follow
I am wondering if it wouldn't be kind of interesting to have a BOF in the middle of the day. People fueled on beer, etc., from the Beer and Gear can get sort of animated at the BOF, and if the mood of the crowd gets negative, it can be hard to be a presenter. (Note I am not, nor ever have been, a NANOG presenter, but I definitely had empathy for their situation.) I think a BOF Tuesday morning and one mid-day Monday could energize the conference. Sitting through 8 hours of presentations, however riveting, can get monotonous, and the BOFs provide a very important source of information and discussion and a nice change of pace. Just a suggestion.
I went to the security BOF... It was most interresting but it could have use more time. The speakers did not have enought time to cover their subject and question sessions were too rushed. A BOF should be an occasion for the community to interract... not a a marathon of speakers. It would have been better if they would have been less speaker too allow more time for questions.
IETF BOF foom was locked, plus late schedule dissuaded attendees who needed most to be there. Tere were enough seats at all BOFS!
ISP Security BOF- lively,not enough time Excellent speakers, many of which should have been prime time talks- Not enoufh time for these topics, given recent events, PGP key signing- great idea
n/a did not attend BOFs
Nanog is more and more about the hallway conversations, and less and less about the technical presentations. I suggest you admit this, and structure NANOG to take more advantage of this. Set up multiple small meeting rooms for people to use for private conversations, and see if you can facilitate those types of conversations. For example: US-CERT/DHS - ISP conversation + vendors (This happened, and was very informative. Did we get everyone to attend that we needed to? Maybe not. If it'd been a BOF run in parallel with the talks it would have been more valuable) I think we should try to devote a whole day to a much more diverse group of BOFs and cut back on the sessions. Also, as a speaker at one of the BOFs, given the amount of controversy over my subject, I'd like to be able to receive feedback related to the BOFs.
needed more time for security BOF
not attended.
nsp-sec BoF agenda was way too long
nsp-sec BOF was excellent
nsp-sec BOF was excellent. Speakers were all good and discussed a great deal of highly relevant issues. Roland Dobbins is really good.
nsp-sec BOF was good.
Security BOF was a great compilation of issues. It provided a well needed change in style of presentation on this repeated(but needed) topic.
Single session is good.
The PGP could have been more organized
The NSP security was once again excellent, but not enough time was available for discussion
The security BOF did not have enough time for everyone to say what they had to say and cut into the IETF BOF which I also wanted to go to...
The Security BOF needs help being moderated, because it gets de-railed really bad at the end.
There was a lot of mini-presenters that took up quite a bit of time. It might have been better to appoint one/two relevant subjects and then go from there. We ran out of time - but then again this is my NANOG - perhaps "this" is normal!
These comments are applicable to the NSP-Security BOF
very enjoyable, good forum for subject matter, referees did a good job
Very full agenda and therefore very little opertunity for interaction, but still interesting.
Was unable to attend because of other commitments.
Wish there was more time for BOFs and that they could be a little more active than they were this time.

Is this your first time attending NANOG?

(52) Yes (113) No

What worked well and what should be improved for the next NANOG?

A couple of the speakers were VERY dry and not very interesting to listen too.....although the topics were what kept me awake. Soryy- don't recall the names.

A terrific format for meeting your peers in person. I didn't come here to peer, I came here to meet my peers. Worked out well, only missed meeting a few peaple.

as always the network was excellent

beer & gear room a bit noisy, but that is minor

Bill Norton's slikes not available on website

BOF: spyware/adware- the hidden menace. crudeware destroys consumer connectivity experience and ISP is percieved to be at fault- user ed. harder that with spam as it is so hidden. How should ISP's handle this

conference rooms were very cold on Sun and Monday, better on tues.

Everything worked well. Starwood group is the best. :-)

firewall, firewall, firewall, black hole, the bad guys please. If microsoft is the bad guy, is ok to block them

Food was good.

get rid of the network authentication system

good agenda and speakers Exchange open and upfront hosts did an excellent job of running the conference

good comms, as usual. Good beer'n'gear, good speakers. Food was good, hotel well chosen, but i stayed in another location, good location( easily accessible by air, etc) Network was good, till it went down, network security improved

Good hotel/location choice (as proven by attendance numbers), good registration and meeting flow. Break food kinda lame, esp. compared to other meetings. Bagels Mon morning were actually stale and the cookies Mon afternoon were never actually cookies (pretzels, cracker jacks, and wrapped candy bars)

Good/Multiple lodging and food within walking distance of hotel

great location and hotel

Having tutorials at more than 1 time would be nice.

hotel and facilities were excellent

Hotel location is great w/ lots of restaurants and options for meals, etc. Public transportation around here is excellent also.

Hotel was much more suitable than previous hotels. Content of presentations was good.

hotel was nice

I complain every NANOG about the refrigeration the hotel applies to the conference room. This has got to be the COLDEST ever - it's simply not funny any more, and if the hotel can't make the conference room a nice comfortable 72F, then they shouldn't host the conference. Conditions in the St Francis were simply NOT acceptable and would be illegal in Europe.

I like the talks from Service Providers

I liked Blill Norton's presentation a lot. IPV6 panel is great. need more panels taht promote discussion w/folks who leave time for discussion

I participated via the real networks feed for most of NANOG on monday morning, the audio had a terrible feedback. It was fixed, thanks,afterwards, the audip quality was excellent. However, reading the text of the presentations was difficult, if not impossible. Now this would not be a problem if the PDF's were available, for all presentations. This was not the case. So would desire iether a fail safe way to get the PDF., or another technology that would be used for the presentations, that would run in parallel with the existing video feeds.There were a couple of talks where the speaker was presenting operatrional data and drawing conclusions. and members from the audience corrected the data. NANOG is a unique place to get feedback. like this survey. but it would be quite useful to plan on gathering much more data via online surveys. make completion a part of NANOG. There is existing technology to do real time me surveys and display the results.

Improvements: - Have ALL presentations available for download (I could not access the "Peering History" presentation, among others)

in SF (close to home)

It was well organized. Charge more and provide lunch(or may not on a separate note, then I can go out and eat that good SF food. Good timekeeping.

kept to the slots alloted, very good! Tuesday was good, entertaining and informative

Little better staging of content. You may want to setup a NAS to load the content off of and have two machines setup in case one freezes...

Main room was a bit cool the first day and a bit warm the second. On average, it was perfect. The fruit you provided was outstanding. It was greatly appreciated - and it was really, really quality produce. Thank you. Keeping the speaker who has the slot just before lunch on time would be helpful to insuring that we're able to get back in time for the post-lunch talk. 90 minutes is generous, but it often takes a while for a group to reach critical mass, chart a course, actually begin ambulating, etc... Great location (both city and hotel). Main room and meeting rooms were all great.

Maybe consider moving the Monday evening BoF sessions, leaving the evenings free for socialising, networking, meetings (justification for travel is much easier if several items can be combined in one trip). Instead move the BoF topics into a break-out session during the day, or consider running for an extra half-day, finshing at noon on the Wednesday, to accomodate BoFs during the days. For most West Coast meetings, a lunchtime finish would probably work better for those travelling to the East Coast. Most people from the East Coast end up on redeye flights or stay the extra day anyway. Wireless "authentication" worked well, I think. It seemed to allow infected MAC/IP address pairs to be quickly linked to their owner. The network seemed much more reliable at this meeting. Good facilities in the hotel, however, it seemed to be an issue regulating the temperature in the meeting room - very cold on the Monday and too warm on the Tuesday. Excellent turnout too - holding NANOG in key locations which are easy for travel and have a number of local Internet Ops staff obviously helps bring attendees out of the woodwork!

Meeting room was very cold on the first day. The second day was better.

Mentioned above in BOF comment field

merge w/ joint- (tendis)? nice setup, good displays, nice parties, nice job! Good wireless(&power)

More than anything, I liked the opportunity to meet peers and learn about other's problems and solutions. It helps put my work into perspective. So, the two evening social events were very good. Thanks.

More vegetarian choices at the Beer and Gear Without meat and cheese

My main reason for attending NANOG is that it's a good place to find lots of people who I need to talk to. I'm interested in hearing a bunch of the talks as well. Unfortunately, the conversations I'm really there for often tend to go very late into the night (even the official BOFs were scheduled to go to 10:30), and it seemed this time that what would have been the two most interesting talks were scheduled for first thing Tuesday morning. This leads to a choice of not being able to have the late-night conversations, not sleeping, or missing the best presentations. I'm not sure I want to be saying "please schedule boring speakers for early in the morning," but it would be nicer if some thought could be given to scheduling well known popular speakers at times that are easy to attend.

network conectivity

networking worked fine. I used a hardwired ethernet connection which limited me to just a couple of tables at the back. I would have prefered to be up toward the front for some of these ethernet taps.

Nice facility, too cold first day, improved second day. Good snacks, nice beer & gear Excellent recption at the Colonial Restaurant I2 joint talks group, much overlap, maybe a repeat from them and vise versa. Security BOF was helpfu. Should have had those talks outsid the BOF as well

no opinions.

Performance of Internet conectivity is sometime very poor. We need QoS?

Please make the speaker's slides match what is on the website.

please simplify the wireless IPSEC solutions

Possibly a "white board section" where folk can share ideas on white board ?

presentations on the web need to be the latest and greatest so we in the back of the room can follow along

presentors didn't have the most up to date presentations available at the podium. Perhaps each morning, the presentations should be loaded on the paptop instead of a week prior?

Registration worked well, social was very nice although packed... Lunch locations are a few blocks away so

room layout worked well. missing coffee after the morning session hurt. wireless worked well.

Room should be a little bigger. The presenters, subjects, and time worked well for me. I also like SFO, but it is a little expensive.

See above

Smaller sessions, or some other way of getting people to actually pay attention. Sure, some of it's the speakers and some is the topic, but the whole laptop phenomenon is not entirely a boon.

temp on Monday great. tuesday it was pooressivly hot! Please keep air on.

Temp. first day was freezing. Very interesting presentations. Need more interesting challenging tutorials.

The beer and gear needed better sushi. The Beer selection was pretty good.

the LAN authentication procedure needs to be improved. getting an error message "you are not here" does not hep the enduser. I had problems with all those times I authenicated(PDA, wireless, wired)

The network quality was highly variant, could be improved.

The only suggestion would be to have something to signal people that the presentations are starting again after a break. ARIN meetings have the gong, and not that I want the gong, but something to let people know. It was fairly annoying (being closer to the back of the room) to have people start to speak when their is still significant noise coming from break area, but chances are that the people are being loud because they do not know that the presentations are starting again.

The sound system could be tighter - mics on in time for questioning etc.

the wireless network was terrific !

The wireless network worked great!

Think registration for wireless access is a great way to track people down. Wireless was overall much more reliable this time.

This hotel was _much_ nicer than the Doubletree in atlanta. More things to consider for the future: Hotel Bar Hours, Size, and proximity to meeting area. Wireless coverage was excellent, however the network was a little iffy at the beginning of the Monday general session. I'd suggest to wireless networks in the future, one of which is only on a subnet that can reach the IPSEC or L2TP servers.

This was an extremely well run meeting. Kudos to all.

too close to RIPE meeting

wireless and ipsec was much improved, I especially liked the ipsec availabiltiy

wireless connectivity has improved from previous NANOG's

wireless connectivity was excellent idea. tutorial for BGP excellent. would have liked the IS IS to not overlap part 2 of BGP

wireless, peering

Do you have suggestions for future NANOG presentations? (Topics and/or speakers)

- Have some kind of way for "experienced" NANOG folks to be introduced to newer folks. (It was difficult to know who we should meet, and the Beer and Gear is too informal)

Would have like to see a talk/bof on VOIP Peering directions.

a router config bake off

An IPv6 deployment BOF would have been really interresting for many people.

ArtShine,abshine@juniper.net, network security issues

Billing and managment of public network! We may be able to pack more talks during two days

confirmation of NETS and NODES is a Bill issus. How about some answers of how to make life simplere. Tae Papeus by NICK (reco) and Ratjl(?)validate this premise. Is there something that vendors can as to ease the configueration headache?

Hosting and data center topics, like load balancing and ssl. It may not work for NANOG, however. I must know who the infamous questioner was after the very first talk on Monday. I think she spread panic through the upcoming speakers, but gave the audience some good laughs.

I am interesting in to hear billing models used for various services

I enjoy operational stuff. While the theory stuff is interesting, I'd like to see how it works when put into operation.

I really like the presentations that speak to conference network security. It seems to get people thinking the right things. Also, talks on operations automation and tracking operational data with databases and the like are always interesting.

I want NANOG to keep current improvement.

I want to know about recent VoIP service trend in U.S.

I wanted to see the BOF's on Monday night, but they were not broadcast. I was disappointed. Please include a video feed for all sessions.

Information Management.

Inter-domain routing security, security for critical infrastructure networks.

Internet2 Metro Broadband acess Metro wifi hotspots Case studies of peering, network, security talk about monitoring

IP fast re-route (interesting conversation on rtgwg@ietf.org right now)

IPv6, BGP( mor of the same) I like the peering stuff, too. More network security.

IRR

large scale IS-IS deployments techniques and scalability

latest thinking in SCA's and associated measurement methods for mailine ISP/NSP's NSP's experience using overlay networks-e.g. VOiP, WANethernet, etc. vs. a single monolithic IP backsone

more like the advanced tutorial taht Shanker presented on ISIS

More measurement/performance topics, Van Jacobson, etc. stuff

more on multicast challenges of 2547 UPNS Survey of L2UPNS

NANOG31 Survey Results

May 2004 - San Francisco, California Attendee Survey Results

May 2004 - San Francisco, California

Attendee Survey Results