Updated: Sun Apr 14 18:04:35 UTC 2019
PeeringDB Board of Directors Election April 15th through 29th 2019 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 positions of the Board of Directors, 3 of which are up for election this year. A Director term is 2 years.
The following schedule applies to Board elections:
Through April 14th 23:59:59 UTC 2019: 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 2019: 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 2019: 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
Having been involved since the PeeringDB’s inception, I am impressed and proud that the PeeringDB has become vital to the Internet interconnection ecosystem. I cannot give enough thanks to the current board under Aaron’s leadership, and volunteers like Greg who do not get enough credit. It would be a deep honor to continue working with this group.
While the PeeringDB is amazing today, there is much more it could do to ease the lives of engineers and peering coordinators. I believe my long tenure with the PeeringDB, work with multiple IXPs, experience on other non-profit Internet-related boards, and decades working in the industry make me uniquely qualified to help.
My primary goals:
1. Ensure the neutrality of the PeeringDB and guarantee users control their records.
2. Provide a stable and secure platform.
3. Be responsive to user requests.
4. Add features.
The order is intentional. Features are important, but it must come after the other priorities. As an example, I fought to ensure importing data from IXF was opt-in. Some wanted to import all data automatically, without user request or input. I believe the admins / board should not decide what is best for you. It is your record, you should have complete control.
If you agree the platform must be vehemently agnostic, and leave no doubt users own their own records, then I am your champion.
In conclusion, I would like to thank each of you for using the PeeringDB. The DB 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 the canonical example of a grass-roots community effort showing value and bringing everyone together.
Fredrik Korsbäck
I’m a Senior Network Architect and interconnect strategist with the not-for-profit network NORDUnet (AS2603). Our main settlements is where the winter is definitely always coming and we provide connectivity for Research & Education network within the whole of Winterfe… Scandinavia. With recent additions of the Baltic States, Poland, Russia and the Netherlands our network is growing to be quite substantial and this does not come without a extensive peering-footprint. What sets us apart from many others of our friends in the R&E World is that we are very keen on peering and has always tried to keep up on what’s happening in the peering-world, both in our own R&E sector and in the commercial sector.
I'm a frequent visitor to any meetings, forums or *NOG’s that has any sort of peering or interconnect-track. We love peering and love to talk about it, especially when it comes to automation we are quite far ahead and the PeeringDB API is the success-factor behind our autopeering functionalities.
I believe that PeeringDB is the best thing that has happened since sliced bread and one of the very key factors for its success is the ability for PeeringDB to stay neutral and unbiased in all aspects. Being in the board this would be my top-priority above all and with the fact that I represent a organization that knows a thing or two about non-profit I think I can provide a lot of valuable input on how organizations can be truly transparent. The data in the DB belongs to the users, and no one else.
Ben Maddison
I have spent the last 12 years closely involved with the Internet network operator and peering community as part of my role as co-founder and director of engineering at Workonline Communications (AS37271), a specialist IP transit service provider serving the African continent.
As part of that role, I have been an active user of PeeringDB throughout most of that period, and have taken an active part in evangelising the practice of data sharing by network operators in general, and the use of PeeringDB in particular, through involvement in various operator fora and initiatives such as MANRS.
My personal focus, if elected to the PeeringDB board, would be in the following areas:
* To safeguard the neutrality of the organisation, and through accordingly the independence of the data published about operators and by operators. I believe the success and reliability of PeeringDB lies primarily in the ability of Internet networks to self-report data without interference by 3rd parties.
* To work to ensure the continued development and reliability of programmatic access mechanisms, which are essential to enable an interconnection ecosystem that continues to grow and scale to the benefit of all its participants.
* To play a part in encouraging greater participation in PeeringDB activities by members of the African Internet community at every level - from information publishing, to data usage, to governance. I believe my knowledge of, and relationships in, this part of the community place me in a particularly strong position to make an impact in this area.
I have watched the strides made by the current PeeringDB governance volunteers with great admiration over the last several years, and I would welcome the opportunity to contribute along with this group.
Arnold Nipper
I'm running again for the PeeringDB Board to be an advocate for users of the platform. Although PDB2.0 is out for three years still much support is needed. We also have an opportunity to make the platform more automated and user-friendly. The governance framework is in place and we were able to get PeeringDB well funded via a couple of generous sponsors.
I've been a PeeringDB Admin for more than 11 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. Besides leading the Admin committee I help on the Product and Outreach Committees.
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. Moreover I would also continue my work in the PDB Product and Outreach Committees.
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 30 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 interconnection industry regularly attending NANOG, RIPE, 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.
Bijal Sanghani
I believe PeeringDB is one of the most important tools for the internet industry. I first started using the system in 2005 while running the AS15412 network for FLAG Telecom. Since then I have served the community in various roles via programme committees and my role as co-chair of the RIPE NCC Services working group as well as today working for a non-profit IXP Membership Association, Euro-IX.
I joined the PeeringDB Board of Directors in 2017 and established the Outreach Committee, together we carried out a user survey, managed the rebranding project, and worked to ensure PeeringDB is GDPR compliant.
If elected to the PeeringDB board I would continue using my experience and stakeholder engagement skills to build bridges and share knowledge across the community by:
1. Continuing to support the outreach committee and look at other services / support PeeringDB can provide.
2. Ensuring there is closer interaction between PeeringDB and the IXP Associations (the members of IX-F).
3. Building on the work done in both communities to ensure there is better communication, understanding and co-operation between these two complimentary databases.
4. Promoting data quality, accuracy, completeness and identify tools and data that would help networks automate further.
Thank you for your support.