About NANOG

From NANOG

What is NANOG?

NANOG, short for North American Network Operators Group, is a forum for Internet coordination, education, engineering and operational discussions.

Meetings

Face to face NANOG meetings are held three times each year at various locations. They include presentations, tutorials, and "Birds of a Feather" (BOF) sessions. Participation is open to anyone.

Who runs the meeting?

NANOG meetings are organized by Merit Network, Inc., a non-profit Michigan organization, and are hosted by Merit and other organizations in North America.

What are the meetings about?

NANOG meetings provide a forum for the exchange of technical information and promote discussion of implementation issues that require community cooperation. Coordination among network service providers helps ensure the stability of overall service to network users.

Origin of NANOG, The Meeting

NANOG evolved from the NSFNET "Regional-Techs" meetings, where technical staff from the regional networks met to discuss operational issues of common concern At the February 1994 regional techs meeting in San Diego, the group revised its charter to include a broader base of network service providers, and subsequently adopted NANOG as its new name.

Organization

NANOG has evolved from a being run by Merit alone to now include volunteers within the community. The structure of the organization includes one elected committee, and two appointed committees. Presently, the functions include managing the running of the conference and organization, the contents of the conference, and the administration of the mailing list.