The Everything Feed - All Packet Pushers Pods HN805: The Past, Present, and Future of NANOG
Nov 14, 2025
Steve Feldman, a member of the NANOG Board of Directors, shares his extensive experience in internet operations. He delves into the history of NANOG, tracing its evolution from NSFNET and discussing its relationship with IETF. Feldman highlights significant milestones like NANOG’s transition into a non-profit and the increasing relevance of the organization in bridging service providers and enterprises. He also addresses the importance of community governance, IPv6 education, and the blurring lines in networking, while previewing future topics like AI and SRE at upcoming events.
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Origins In Regional Cooperation
- NANOG began as a continuation of Regional Techs when NSF withdrew from running the backbone in the early 1990s.
- Steve Feldman describes attendees as a small set of operators who needed to cooperate and call each other when things broke.
NANOG Complements IETF Running Code
- NANOG acted as the 'running code' complement to IETF's protocol design by testing protocols in production.
- That synergy let operators implement IETF ideas and feed practical feedback back to standards work.
Scale Changed Operator–Vendor Dynamics
- The networking ecosystem scaled hugely since the 1990s, separating vendors from many users.
- Steve Feldman notes this growth makes direct cross-community communication harder but still essential.