IAB Liaison Role

An important role of the IAB is to manage and assist with coordination activities among the IETF, IAB, and various other organizations involved in the development of Internet-related technologies. In practice, this oversight role involves several components described below.

IETF Liaisons with External Organizations

The IETF has a number of formal liaison relationships with other organizations. These liaison relationships are established by the IAB when it feels that conditions warrant appointing a specific person to manage the inter-organization coordination. Once the liaison relationship is established, the IAB appoints a liaison manager to act as the IETF-side point of contact. A list of the current IETF liaison relationships, and their corresponding IETF manager, can be found on the IETF website Liaison Managers page.

When an IETF liaison manager sends a liaison statement to a partner organization, or when a partner organization communicates with the IETF, the correspondence is entered into the Liaison Statements management tool.

Most communication occurs between the IETF liaison manager and the partner organization directly, through the Liaison Statement tool, with the IAB performing only an oversight function. Occasionally correspondence is directed to, or sent by, the IAB itself. If there is an existing liaison relationship with the partner organization, this correspondence will also be archived in the Liaison Statement repository. If there is not a formal liaison relationship already established, the correspondence will generally be posted to the IAB correspondence page.

Some IETF liaison managers send reports to the IAB for publication to the wider community. This practice was more common in the past, and previous reports are archived here. More recently, reports from liaison managers have been included in the IAB meeting minutes.

It should be noted that the number of formal liaison relationships is somewhat small, as the best way for most organizations to work with the IETF is to do so through IETF working groups. The primary contact regarding the establishment of a new liaison relationship is the IAB.

Internal IAB Liaisons

In addition to establishing and appointing liaisons for the IETF, the IAB also maintains several direct liaisons with closely affiliated groups:

IAB Liaison to the IESG:	Wes Hardaker
IESG Liaison to the IAB:	Alvaro Retana
RFC Editor Liaison to the IAB:	John Levine (Temporary RFC Series Project Manager)
ISOC Liaison to the IAB:	Karen O’Donoghue
IRTF Liaison to the IAB:	Colin Perkins (IRTF Chair)
IAB Liaison to Nomcom 2020-2021:	Mark Nottingham