About this episode
Geoff Huston discusses the interpretation of 'Best Current Practice' by the IETF and its implications for network standards.
In this episode of PING, APNIC Chief Scientist Geoff Huston discusses an emerging concern about how the IETF interprets the concept of ‘Best Current Practice‘ (BCP). In his previous episode, Geoff explored emerging questions around DNS provisioning over IPv6, including experimental observations on its performance characteristics. Towards the end of the discussion, we turned to how the Internet Engineering Task Force documents standards and protocols through Best Current Practice (BCP) publications. In the traditional view, BCPs are intended to provide clear, implementation-focused guidance that remains neutral across different operational contexts. This includes networks of all scales — from home environments to enterprise, national, and international infrastructure. These systems rely on a shared understanding of protocol behaviour, and BCPs help define the set of practical, interoperable choices available for deployment today. To be designated as a BCP, an IETF RFC undergoes additional review and scrutiny. This is similar to the ‘Standard’ (STD) designation, which elevates an RFC beyond a general publication and gives it greater weight in operational and procurement contexts…
People in this episode
Host: Geoff Huston
Topics covered
- Best Current Practice
- IETF
- DNS provisioning
- IPv6
- protocol standards
- network infrastructure
Keywords
- BCP
- IETF RFC
- protocol behaviour
- networking
- standards
- operational contexts
- DNS
- IPv6
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: IETF, APNIC
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