The 2023 Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies (APRICOT 2023) successfully concludes its 10-day run from 20 February to 2 March 2023 at the Sofitel Philippines Plaza Manila. More than 600 on-site and 200 online participants took part in the workshops and conference, which was a good measure for the event’s return to in-person mode. 

Workshop Week  

The workshop week was from 20-24 February, wherein five (5) parallel technical workshops were held. In one of the workshops on Network Automation for Network Engineers, facilitated by Mr. Anurag Bhatia from Hurricane Electric (India), DOST-ASTI researchers Mr. Jaros Lacerna of the Philippine Research, Education, and Government Information Network (PREGINET), and Mr. Tommy Aydalla, Jr. of the Computing and Archiving Research Environment (COARE), were invited as his co-facilitators and teaching assistants.  

The workshop introduced different network automation concepts, including Docker, Ansible, Gitlab CI/CD pipeline, REST API and Web UI based app creation, and discussions on how these concepts can help with scaling deployment and operations of today’s Internet infrastructure. During the last day, the participants did hands-on activities to integrate the software and concepts discussed. 

Conference Week 

The conference week officially started on 27 February with the Opening Ceremony and Plenary. Mr. Paul Vixie, legendary Domain Name System (DNS) pioneer whose legacy includes protocol design and procedure, mechanisms to achieve operational robustness of DNS implementations, and significant contributions to open-source software principles and methodology, was the main Keynote Speaker. He talked about the Security Implications of QUIC, which, as defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), is an encrypted connection-oriented protocol that operates at the Transport Layer or Layer 4. According to Mr. Vixie, “Adoption of QUIC will radically alter the security profile and performance characteristics of managed private edge networks including home and enterprise, for both Web servers and Web clients.”  

Another Keynote Speaker was Mr. William Torres, founder of Mosaic Communications (Moscom). He is recognized for his significant pioneering contributions in computer and information technology and is known as the Father of the Internet in the Philippines. Mr. Torres talked about Challenges to Enabling Digital Enterprise Ecosystems in his keynote. His presentation emphasized the need to focus attention on the needs of small to medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and how they can be enabled to utilize available ICT resources in a more efficient and effective way. According to Mr. Torres, “I believe that using the digital enterprise ecosystems approach will help SMEs actively participate in bringing about the appropriate digital transformation in their respective enterprise ecosystems. However, ICT service providers will have to reinvent themselves if they are to benefit from this emerging opportunity”. 

During the Opening Plenary, DOST-ASTI was also given a token for its support to APRICOT 2023. Following the opening of the conference, various meetings and discussions were held in parallel until the last day. DOST-ASTI researchers and project teams were able to participate in some of these meetings and discussions including Community Networks, and a Diversity and Inclusivity in Tech Panel Discussion on Improving Network Operations through Workforce Diversity. During the Closing Plenary, Mr. Bani Lara of PREGINET also presented the APRICOT 2023 Manila Report. 

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APRICOT 2023 is organized by the Asia Pacific Network Operators Group (APNOG) and co-organized by the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC). Local host is the Philippine Network Operations Group (PhNOG) and supported by the DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI).