Candidate Data Appearing in the Ballot

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I first used PeeringDB back in 2005 as a newcomer to the peering world to help establish and internally track peering relationships for AS32787. PeeringDB was a critical resource in identifying possible peering relationships and connecting with the right people within those networks.

I am currently SVP of Software Engineering for PacketFabric, a start-up in the networking and carrier space. As a software engineer who has spent most of my career focused on network automation, I have a deep appreciation for community resources and open source code. Over my career I have contributed to several open source projects, served as the only neutral contributor and primary technology support to the Global Peering Forum, Security Working Group Co-chair for ODCA, and worked as Board Liaison and Chair of the Program Committee for Open-IX. From these experiences, as well as being early stage or late stage at a few start-ups (Prolexic, Terremark, 6connect, PacketFabric), I have a deep understanding of how to drive progress with minimal resources and get people involved in community groups and projects. I am also one of the few people who can write the code to make just about anything happen!

As a PeeringDB board member I will ensure organizational transparency, keep PeeringDB firmly in the hands of the community - free of government oversight, focus on continual improvement of API functionality, and incorporate new features/community feedback to drive PeeringDB functionality for the users.

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I am a french freelancer and small network operator (AS60983). I have a 10-year experience in networks and networked systems. In a previous job, I was in charge of planning and establishing peering relationship.

Now I am the secretary of AuvernIX, a local IXP. As a really small non-profit association, my role in AuvernIX is as much to write reports than to manage contacts with other network operators and other IXP and do the plumbing. I am also a part-time teacher at the local university (Université d'Auvergne) where I teach Internet technologies.

PeeringDB has always been an amazing tool to find informations about where to peer with a network and it eases the work of small network owners a lot. As a member I try to ensure the database is exhaustive and accurate. As a member of the board, I am looking forward to help expand PeeringDB, get as many network, facilities or IXP operators registered and active on PeeringDB as possible and be the voice of smaller operators on the board.

I have never sat on board of an international organization and english is not my native language but I know how an association works, how peering is important for the Internet community and how it works, both technically and politically.

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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 have a goal of becoming 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 Initial 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.

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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!

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I'm a Senior Product Line Manager at Alcatel-Lucent, where I work with service providers and Internet exchanges around the world to deliver innovative internetworking solutions. I've been an active member of the network operator and peering community for nearly 20 years, and frequently speak at network operator conferences on network technology and operational topics.

Prior to joining Alcatel-Lucent, I held technical marketing and systems engineering positions at Brocade Communications, Force10 Networks and Riverstone Networks, and network engineering positions at MindSpring Enterprises and Georgia Tech.

I am currently a member of the Open-IX IXP Standards Committee, Open-IX Board member-elect, am ending a four year term on the NANOG Program Committee, and am the chair of the Euro-IX Forum Programme Committee.

I would like to serve on the PeeringDB Board of Directors, to help finally launch an independent organization that supports and grows this indispensable peering resource for the community. The first steps I would help take after incorporation are to secure donations, to launch version 2.0, and to contract PeeringDB's maintenance and further development.

I have been volunteering as a PeeringDB admin for several months, so I have a good working knowledge of all of the many pieces involved in its daily operations. My background and experience in the community, combined with an unbiased perspective and a strong sense of commitment, make me an excellent candidate for this position.

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I'm running for the Board to help. I have extensive legal, corporate governance, finance, data center, networks and IXP experience.

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Aaron Hughes is 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.

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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 networks within the whole of Winterfe… Scandinavia. With recent additions of the Baltics, Poland, Russia and Netherlands our network is growing substantially. What sets us apart from many others of our friends in the R&E World is that we are very keen on peering and have 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 automatic peering-functionalities.

I believe that PeeringDB is the best 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.

I don’t have 25 years in the business and I don’t have any RFCs to my name but I will always call a spade a spade even if it’s not the most popular thing to say. I have no experience in being part of a international board but what I do know is what the Peering-world needs, and that is a free and unbiased PeeringDB.

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I'm running for the PeeringDB Board to be an advocate for users of the platform. The creation of this new Board allows us an opportunity to make the platform more automated and user-friendly. Board members will also help to ensure a smooth transition of PeeringDB to its new governance framework in the coming months.

I've been a PeeringDB Admin for the past seven 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

We're in the process of transitioning to PeeringDB 2.0. 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.

We also find ourselves in the midst of a very important transition to a more automated platform. With the alliance to the new IX-F organization, 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 Euro-IX, 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 current CTO/COO of DE-CIX. I have a close eye on the global peering industry. I regularly attend NANOG, DE-NOG, 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.

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PeeringDB is one of the most important online operator resources, and as such I believe PeeringDB should remain an independent, free of charge, neutral and foremost: a practical tool for everyday use.

I've built up useful experience leading long term community-driven projects such as the NLNOG RING. Other volunteer experiences include: NANOG (communications committee), NLNOG (chair), RIPE (Database WG chair) and the IETF (contributor to international standards). Full overview: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jobsnijders

For the board to maintain a balanced view on things, multiple facets of this industry should be represented: Content, IXP, Datacenter & IP backbone. As an architect for a global carrier I'll contribute my perspective and help establish the interests of IP network operators world-wide.

Together with a great team, I've helped run the operational side of PeeringDB for the last several years, and hope to be given the trust and opportunity to continue to guide PeeringDB forward.

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I’d like to be considered for the board, and be a part of growing PeeringDB from a group of (awesome) super users and admins into an independent organization befitting of such a useful tool.

I’ve only been in the internet industry since 2009. But I think I have a useful set of skills (some governance, product management, financial, networking) that’d make me a good fit.

PeeringDB is on a good path to be an efficient, consensus-driven, inclusive, and transparent non-profit. The community and the tool itself deserve nothing less.

There’s quite a bit of excitement and maybe some apprehension about making sure PeeringDB starts in the right direction. I hope I’ll considered for the Board and to make sure PeeringDB’s non-profit beginnings are as sure-footed as possible.