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The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite. It is an open standards organization, with no formal membership or membership requirements.

All participants and managers are volunteers, though their work is usually funded by their employers or sponsors; for instance, the current chairperson is funded by VeriSign and the U.S. government's National Security Agency.^[1]

Organization[link]

The IETF is organized into a large number of working groups and informal discussion groups (BoF)s, each dealing with a specific topic. Each group is intended to complete work on that topic and then disband. Each working group has an appointed chairperson (or sometimes several co-chairs), along with a charter that describes its focus, and what and when it is expected to produce. It is open to all who want to participate, and holds discussions on an open mailing list or at IETF meetings. The mailing list consensus is the final arbiter of decision of-making. There is no voting procedure, as it operates on rough consensus process.

The working groups are organized into areas by subject matter. Current areas include: Applications, General, Internet, Operations and Management, Real-time Applications and Infrastructure, Routing, Security, and Transport. Each area is overseen by an area director (AD), with most areas having two co-ADs. The ADs are responsible for appointing working group chairs. The area directors, together with the IETF Chair, form the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), which is responsible for the overall operation of the IETF. The groups will normally be closed once the work described in its charter is finished. In some cases, the WG will instead have its charter updated to take on new tasks as appropriate.

The IETF is formally a part of the Internet Society. The IETF is overseen by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), which oversees its external relationships, and relations with the RFC Editor. The IAB is also jointly responsible for the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC), which oversees the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA), which provides logistical, etc. support for the IETF. The IAB also manages the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), with which the IETF has a number of cross-group relations.

History[link]

The first IETF meeting was on January 16, 1986, consisting of 21 U.S.-government-funded researchers. It was a continuation of the work of the earlier GADS Task Force.

Initially, it met quarterly, but from 1991, it has been meeting 3 times a year. Representatives from non-governmental entities were invited starting with the fourth IETF meeting, during October of that year. Since that time all IETF meetings have been open to the public. The majority of the IETF's work is done on mailing lists, and meeting attendance is not required for contributors.

The initial meetings were very small, with fewer than 35 people in attendance at each of the first five meetings. The maximum attendance during the first 13 meetings was only 120 attendees. This occurred at the 12th meeting held during January 1989. These meetings have grown in both participation and scope a great deal since the early 1990s; it had a maximum attendance of 2,810 at the December 2000 IETF held in San Diego, CA. Attendance declined with industry restructuring during the early 2000s, and is currently around 1,200.^[2]

During the early 1990s the IETF changed institutional form from an activity of the U.S. government to an independent, international activity associated with the Internet Society.

Operations[link]

The details of its operations have changed considerably as it has grown, but the basic mechanism remains publication of draft specifications, review and independent testing by participants, and republication. Interoperability is the chief test for IETF specifications becoming standards. Most of its specifications are focused on single protocols rather than tightly interlocked systems. This has allowed its protocols to be used in many different systems, and its standards are routinely re-used by bodies which create full-fledged architectures (e.g. 3GPP IMS).

Because it relies on volunteers and uses "rough consensus and running code" as its touchstone, results can be slow whenever the number of volunteers is either too small to make progress, or so large as to make consensus difficult, or when volunteers lack the necessary expertise. For protocols like SMTP, which is used to transport e-mail for a user community in the many hundreds of millions, there is also considerable resistance to any change that is not fully backwards compatible. Work within the IETF on ways to improve the speed of the standards-making process is ongoing but, because the number of volunteers with opinions on it is very great, consensus mechanisms on how to improve have been slow.

Because the IETF does not have members (nor is it an organisation per se), the Internet Society provides the financial and legal framework for the activities of the IETF and its sister bodies (IAB, IRTF,...). Recently the IETF has set up an IETF Trust that manages the copyrighted materials produced by the IETF. IETF activities are funded by meeting fees, meeting sponsors and by the Internet Society via its organizational membership and the proceeds of the Public Interest Registry.

IETF meetings vary greatly in where they are held. The list of past and future meeting locations can be found on the IETF meetings^[3] page. The IETF has striven to hold the meetings near where most of the IETF volunteers are located. For a long time, the goal was 3 meetings a year, with 2 in North America and 1 in either Europe or Asia (alternating between them every other year). The goal ratio is currently, during a two year period, to have 3 in North America, 2 in Europe and 1 in Asia. However, corporate sponsorship of the meetings is typically a more important factor and this schedule has not been kept strictly in order to decrease operational costs.

Chairs[link]

The IETF Chairperson is selected by the NOMCOM process specified in RFC 3777 for a 2-year term, renewable.

Before 1993, the IETF Chair was selected by the IAB.

• Mike Corrigan (1986)
• Phill Gross (1986–1994)
• Paul Mockapetris (1994–1996)
• Fred Baker (1996–2001)
• Harald Tveit Alvestrand (2001–2005)
• Brian Carpenter (2005–2007)
• Russ Housley (2007–)^[4]

See also[link]

• GADS Task Force
• Internet Architecture Board
• Internet Engineering Steering Group
• Internet Research Task Force
• Internet standard
• Request for Comments
• Standardization

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
  • IETF Online Proceedings
  • Early IETF Proceedings (note: large pdf files, one for each volume)
  • Past Meetings of the IETF
  • Past IESG Members and IETF Chairs
• The Tao of the IETF: details on how IETF is organized
• IAOC information
• MyIETF Personalized notification service on RFC's and drafts with full archive of old drafts etc.

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (August 2008)

A task force (TF) is a unit or formation established to work on a single defined task or activity. Originally introduced by the United States Navy, the term has now caught on for general usage and is a standard part of NATO terminology. Many non-military organizations now create "task forces" or task groups for temporary activities that might have once been performed by ad hoc committees.

Types of task forces[link]

Joint Task Force[link]

In U.S. terminology, now widely adopted, including by NATO, the term Joint implies the combination of more than one military service (i.e. some combination of army, naval and/or air forces). Therefore a Joint Task Force (JTF) is a TF which includes more than one service.

United States Department of Defense[link]

A joint task force (JTF) is a joint force that is constituted and so designated by a JTF establishing authority. A JTF establishing authority may be the Secretary of Defense or the commander of a combatant command, subordinate unified command, or existing JTF. In most situations, the JTF establishing authority will be a combatant commander. JTFs are established on a geographical area or functional basis when the mission has a specific limited objective and does not require overall centralized control of logistics.

In the US, the National Guard Bureau requires each state to designate a Joint Task Force that is able to mobilize to provide command and control for all assigned state military assets deployed in support of civilian authorities during a stateside incident.^[1]

Examples include Joint Task Force Bravo, Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Joint Task Force Lebanon, and Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations.

Canada[link]

Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2) is the Canadian Forces' elite special forces unit. However, it is not temporary but permanent, and does not fit with the US Combined Communication-Electronics Board system (TF 2 remains allocated to the United States). Thus while it is called a Joint Task Force and it does involve personnel from all three services (Army, Navy, and Air Force, therefore "Joint") it is not temporary (therefore not a "Task Force" by the US definition). It is known to have fought in Afghanistan and was part of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti.

Combined Task Force[link]

In U.S. terminology, now widely adopted, including by NATO, the term combined implies more than one nation. At the start of World War II, the UK used "Combined" to denote forces composed of more than one service, which is how the Combined Operations term originated. However they soon adopted the U.S. usage, and organizations were named accordingly, for example, the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Today a Combined Task Force (CTF) is a task force which includes sub-elements of more than one nation.

An example is Combined Task Force 151.

Combined Joint Task Force[link]

A Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) is a task force which includes elements of more than one service and elements of more than one nation. Examples include Combined Joint Task Force 76 and Task Force Viking.

Naval[link]

The concept of a naval task force is as old as navies, but the term came into extensive use originally by the U.S. Navy around the beginning of 1941, as a way to increase operational flexibility. Prior to that time the assembly of ships for naval operations was referred to as fleets, divisions, or on the smaller scale, squadrons, and flotillas.

Before World War II ships were collected into divisions derived from the Royal Navy's "division" of the line of battle in which one squadron usually remained under the direct command of the Admiral of the Fleet, one squadron was commanded by a Vice Admiral, and one by a Rear Admiral, each of the three squadrons flying different coloured flags, hence the terms flagship and flag officer. The flag of the Fleet Admiral's squadron was red, the Vice Admiral's was white and the Rear Admiral's blue. (The names "Vice" (possibly from advanced) and "Rear" might have derived from sailing positions within the line at the moment of engagement.) In the late 19th century ships were collected in numbered squadrons, which were assigned to named (such as the Asiatic Fleet) and later numbered fleets.

A task force can be assembled using ships from different divisions and squadrons, without requiring a formal and permanent fleet reorganization, and can be easily dissolved following completion of the operational task. The task force concept worked very well, and by the end of World War II about 100 task forces had been created in the U.S. Navy alone.

United States Navy[link]

These are temporary call signs designated to particular ship/ships assigned to fulfill certain missions. CTF can be read as "Commander Task Force" or "Carrier Task Force" while TF is Task Force. Likewise the force is broken down as following: task force, task group, task unit and task element.

In the U.S. Navy each task force was assigned a two-digit number, and this has become a common world-wide practice. The first digit was originally the number of the fleet, while the second historically differentiated between task forces from the same fleet. It was typically abbreviated, so references like TF 11 are commonly seen. In addition, a task force could be broken into several task groups,^[2] identified by decimal points, as in TG 11.2, and finally task units, as in TU 11.2.1. Individual ships are task elements, for example TE 11.2.1.2 would be the second ship in TU 11.2.1.

Some US Navy task forces in World War II:

• Task Force 3
• Task Force 11
• Task Force 16
• Task Force 17
• Task Force 31
• Task Force 34
• Task Force 38 of aircraft carriers in the Central Pacific
• Task Force 58 of aircraft carriers in the Central Pacific
• Task Force 61
• Task Force 80
• Task Force 88
• Task Force 129 of Cherbourg

Also, Task Force 77 was the large Carrier Task Force in the Sea of Japan during the Korean War.

The U.S. Navy still uses numbered task forces, and the U.S. Department of Defense often forms a joint task force if the force includes units from other services. In naval terms, the multinational Australian/US/UK/Canadian/NZ Combined Communications Electronics Board mandates through Allied Communications Publication 113 (ACP 113) the present system, which allocated numbers from TF 1 to apparently TF 999.^[3] For example, the Royal Navy's Illustrious battle group in 2000 for Exercise Linked Seas, subsequently deployed to Operation Palliser, was Task Group 342.1.^[4] The French Navy is allocated the series TF 470–474, and Task Force 473 has been used recently for an Enduring Freedom task force deployment built around the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle (R91). Task Force 142 is the U.S. Navy's Operational Test and Evaluation Force.

Note that there is no requirement for uniqueness over time. For instance, there was a TF 76 in World War II, and a different TF 76 during the War in Vietnam, as a part of the Seventh Fleet.

Royal Navy[link]

Earlier in the Second World War, the British Royal Navy had devised its own similar system of Forces, which were assigned a letter rather than a number. For example, the force stationed at Gibraltar was known as Force H, the force stationed at Malta was known as Force K, and the force stationed at Singapore in December 1941 was known as Force Z.

During the Falklands War in 1982 Royal Navy assembled a Task Force to achieve sea and air supremacy in the Total Exclusion Zone, before the amphibious forces arrived. The Argentine Navy formed three lesser Task Groups (Grupo de Tareas) for pincer movements.

Army[link]

In the U.S. Army, a task force is a battalion-sized (usually, although there are variations in size) ad hoc unit formed by attaching smaller elements of other units. A company-sized unit with an armored or mechanized infantry unit attached is called a company team. A similar unit at the brigade level is called a brigade combat team (BCT), and there is also a smaller Regimental combat team (RCT).

In the British Army and the armies of other Commonwealth countries, such units are known as battlegroups.

Government[link]

In government or business a task force is temporary organization created to solve a particular problem. It is considered to be a more formal ad-hoc committee.

A taskforce, or more-commonly task force, is a special committee, usually of experts, formed expressly for the purpose of studying a particular problem. The task force usually performs some sort of an audit to assess the current situation, then draws up a list of all the current problems present and evaluates which ones merit fixing and which ones are actually fixable. The task force would then formulate a set of solutions to the problems and pick the "best" solution to each problem, as determined by some set of standards. For example, a task force set up to eliminate excessive government spending might consider a "best" solution to be one that saves the most money. Normally, the task force then presents its findings and proposed solutions to the institution that called for its formation; it is then up to the institution itself to actually act upon the task force's recommendations.

Task forces in popular culture[link]

• In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, some of the main characters are from an elite, multinational task force called Task Force 141 which is composed of Americans, British, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders. Their main opponent is Russia under control from extreme nationalists. In the direct sequel, Modern Warfare 3, the Task Force is disavowed after the events of the previous game; however, they still remain active in an attempt to end the now-ensuing World War III.

• In the TV series Hawaii Five-O, Steven "Steve" McGarrett created the so-called "Five-O Task Force" which was group of state police based in Hawaii, hence Hawaii Five-O

See also[link]

• Some task forces have a creative name, e.g. after their commander, such as Dunsterforce.
• Task Force Tarawa, the name given the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade during the 2003 invasion of Iraq Operation Iraqi Freedom. They were a Marine Air-Ground Task Force commanded by Brigadier General Richard Natonski, attached to the I Marine Expeditionary Force.
• Task Force Leatherneck is the name given the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade during their 2009 operations in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. They are a Marine Air-Ground Task Force commanded by Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, assigned to work under the International Security Assistance Force.

References[link]

1. ^ National Guard Bureau. "Joint Task Force-State fact sheet". Joint Task Force-State fact sheet. National Guard Bureau. http://www.ng.mil/media/factsheets/JTF-State.pdf. Retrieved 3 March 2011. 
2. ^ Group. GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
3. ^ Combined Communication Electronics Board (September 2004). "Annex A: Task Force Allocations". ACP 113(AF) Call Sign Book for Ships. Joint Chiefs of Staff. pp. A-1–A-2 (197–198). Archived from the original on February 28, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080228002817/http://www.jcs.mil/j6/cceb/acps/ACP113AFMC5.pdf. Retrieved 12 October 2010. 
4. ^ Operations in Sierra Leone, August 9, 2000, Jane's Defence Weekly.