Updated: Sun Apr 17 23:32:05 UTC 2016
PeeringDB Board of Directors Election April 15th through 29th 2016 UTC
Bylaws at http://docs.peeringdb.com/gov/legaldocs/2015-12-08_PeeringDB_Bylaws.pdf define Membership:
"A corporation, limited liability company, partnership or other legal business entity may be a Member of the Corporation. Membership is determined by having both an active PeeringDB.com account and an individual representative or role subscription to the PeeringDB Governance mailing list: http://lists.peeringdb.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pdb-gov"
Each Member may submit one ballot. We are employing Single Transferable Vote (STV) as the voting system. This means that you rank your candidate preferences from most preferred to least preferred. You do not need to rank all the candidates. A later ballot from a representative of a Member will replace a previous ballot from the same Member.
There are 5 members of the Board of Directors, all of which are up for election this year. The Bylaws prescribe staggered Board elections. Based on the BigPulse.com STV results, the top two candidates will get Board terms of 2 years, while the next three candidates will get Board terms of 1 year. Next year, there will be three seats up for election, all with 2 year terms.
The following schedule applies to Board elections:
Through April 14th 23:59:59 UTC 2016: Candidates may submit their candidacy and maximum 300 word statement, as determined by POSIX "LANG=en_US.UTF-8 wc -w" command, or revisions to their statement, to secretary@peeringdb.com.
April 15th 2016: Ballots, with candidate statements, will be submitted to the PeeringDB Governance mailing list (pdb-gov@lists.peeringdb.com).
April 15th through 29th 23:59 UTC 2016: Voting. (Registrations received after April 28th UTC are not guaranteed to be processed in time for the April 29th 23:59 UTC voting deadline.)
List of Candidates:
Candidate Statements:
Patrick W. Gilmore
I have been involved in PeeringDB since its inception. My approach has been to keep the PeeringDB viciously agnostic, and guarantee each member has absolute control over their own record. I honestly believe these guiding principals are the reason so many people in so many places use and trust the system. My primary goal in running for the board is to ensure these principals continue to be followed as we transition from a few volunteers helping when we can to a funded corporation.
Obviously the PeeringDB needs to be financially stable, highly secure, and stable for the long term. This is why we became a 501(c)(6) non-profit corporation and are seeking funding. Adding features such as anti-abuse and perhaps information sharing with other organizations are worthy objectives to do or at least consider. But everything should be done with the primary goals in mind - fairness and member control.
If you feel the same, then I will be a strong advocate for your views.
Finally, I have been involved in multiple non-profit organizations, including transitioning NANOG from Merit to its own non-profit corporation. I am confident I have experience which is useful to the PeeringDB. Combined with my tenure at the PeeringDB, I believe this makes me a good candidate for the Board.
In conclusion, I would like to thank each of you for using the PeeringDB. The PeeringDB is only as useful as the members make it, and you have made it the most important repository of peering information on the Internet. It is truly humbling to have been involved in what I consider to be the canonical example of a grass-roots community effort showing value and bringing everyone together.
Matt Griswold
Hi - I'm Matt Griswold and I am currently Chairman and CTO for United IX, an Internet exchange in Chicago. I have been coding and launching technology companies since 1999. I am extremely passionate about peering and Internet communities and have volunteered Euro-IX, NANOG, Open-IX and PeeringDB.
I started providing coding support and upgrades for PeeringDB in 2011. Shortly after, I became an admin to assist in answering support tickets, and gain a better understanding of user base and the feature/improvement requests being made. After gaining a good insight to the use cases, I began writing PeeringDB 2.0 to fulfill many of the community requests for features and improvements. Getting PeeringDB 2.0 in beta has been a huge step forward, but there is still a substantial amount of work to complete the vision for 2.0. Along with adding new functionality and data objects, I want to ensure we maintain data validity and interoperate with other community resources such as IXF and ixp-memberlist schema to make PeeringDB a one stop canonical source for any business needs.
This is an exciting time for everyone involved with PeeringDB. As a member of the board, I will focus my efforts implementing even more features from the long queue of requests and ideas and stay deeply involved with the community. I sincerely hope to have the opportunity to continue to contribute any way I can, and drive progress as PeeringDB evolves. Let's revolutionize how interconnection databases work and make the world a better place!
Florian Hibler
I have been using PeeringDB since my introduction in 2009, where I started using it for evaluating peering relationships and maintaining contact details for peers.
As a Network Architect and Interconnection Manager I know and appreciate the true value of PeeringDB. For me, and my colleagues, we have always seen PeeringDB as the information center for the world’s ever growing interconnection ecosystem, therefore has become the essential tool for all Network Engineers and Peering Coordinators.
I believe, much like other industry boards, that we must have board members who have experience in a multitude of areas and verticals, including real world experience. Within my previous roles, strategic planning for carriers, operational insights in internet exchanges as well as building global networks and interconnections were but a few of my core responsibilities. As many of you know, I am always happy to contribute to community-driven projects (fe. DENOG, NANOG BCOP, PeeringDB). I am also a regular attendee of various NOGs/NOFs around the world as well as Peering Forums.
I believe to maintain and build upon the strong existing ecosystem, that we must continue to provide each member full and guaranteed control over their own database entries, this includes networks, facility operators and internet exchanges. Doing this moves the responsibility and accuracy to be with the Network Engineers and Peering Coordinators using the platform. This allows PeeringDB to stay agile and nimble through the rapid growth we have seen over the last few years.
In conclusion, with my existing involvement with the PeeringDB team for several years, I have demonstrated to the community that PeeringDB is something I believe in both strategically and operationally. Therefore I feel that I am one of the best candidates suited for a role within the Board of Directors for PeeringDB. Thank you for your consideration.
Aaron Hughes
Aaron Hughes is the current elected President of PeeringDB. In the initial term, he has worked with the Board of Directors, Officers and supporting volunteers to establish the organization, its bylaws, articles of incorporation, file for and have approved 501(c)(6) status, establish supporting processes, form supporting committees, establish a budget, setup contracts with vendors, and attract sponsors to support the organization. If re-elected, he will continue to work with the team to ensure the longevity of the organization utilizing community input and experience.
Aaron is also the President and CEO of 6connect, a leader in network provisioning automation including global resource management of IPv6/IPv4 Addressing, DNS/DNSSEC control for Service Providers and Enterprises as well as peering automation. He is deeply rooted in community supporting organizations such as ARIN, NANOG, RIPE, APNIC, CaribNOG, Rocky Mountain IPv6 Task Force, and peering communities around the globe. Aaron has held network and system architecture and Sr. level management roles at Lockheed Martin, Cariden Technologies, Terremark, Certainty Solutions, UnitedLayer, Quest Technologies, RCN, UltraNet and Channel(1) Communications among others. In addition, he helped found the Best Current Operational Practices (BCOP) forum and was elected to the ARIN Board of Trustees in 2012. He has also participated in the administration of PeeringDB for several years.
Arnold Nipper
I'm running again for the PeeringDB Board to be an advocate for users of the platform. Now that PDB2.0 is out we have an opportunity to make the platform more automated and user-friendly. After the smooth transition of PeeringDB to its new governance framework we still will have to make sure that PeeringDB is well funded and runs reliable services.
I've been a PeeringDB Admin for more than eight years. I've already worked in the nooks and crannies of the platform, and know where we can improve it. I've been very closely involved in the support functions of PeeringDB, supporting queries for customer care. We need a reliable and responsive support desk
As a member of the Board, I'd focus on making 2.0 a stable platform, ensuring that we have all the features and data that our users need to run their daily business.
PeeringDB will be a primary source - globally - for accurate, updated and standardized data about networks, IXPs, data centers, colocation providers and more. I've been driving this process forward with all relevant parties, and I'll work diligently to ensure all IXPs globally develop their IXPA interface to make this a useful tool for the worldwide community.
I bring more than 25 years of experience and expertise in the ISP and IXP industry. I'm co-founder and after 15 years as CTO/COO now an evangelist of DE-CIX. I have a close eye on the global peering industry regularly attending NANOG, DEnog, MENOG, APRICOT and other key global fora.
I love what I do, and I'd like to continue to serve this awesome industry as a member of the PeeringDB Board of Directors.
Job Snijders
PeeringDB is one of the most important online resources for network operators, and as such I believe it should remain independent, free of charge, neutral and foremost: a pragmatic tool for everyday use.
Through the years, I've built up useful experience leading and participating in a number of community-driven projects such as the NLNOG RING, the NANOG communications committee, the NLNOG association (as chairman), the RIPE Database WG (as chairman) and the IETF (as contributor to international standards).
You can find a detailed overview here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jobsnijders
I believe that for the board to maintain a balanced and fair view, multiple facets of this industry should be represented: Content, IXP, Datacenter & IP carrier.
As an architect for a global carrier I will contribute my perspective and help extend the reach of PeeringDB to IP network operators world-wide.
I've helped run PeeringDB for the last several years, and I'm currently serving as a member of its Board of Directors. I hope to be given the trust and opportunity to continue to guide PeeringDB forward.