According to The Tao of IETF: A Novice's Guide to the Internet Engineering Task Force, "The Hierarchy" of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) includes the following bodies:

ISOC (Internet Society)

"The Internet Society is an international, non-profit, membership organization that fosters the expansion of the Internet. One of the ways that ISOC does this is through financial and legal support of the other 'I' groups described here, particularly the IETF. ISOC's oversight of the IETF is remarkably hands-off, so many IETF participants don't even know about it. ISOC provides insurance coverage for many of the people in the IETF process, and acts as a public relations channel for the times that one of the 'I' groups wants to say something to the press. The ISOC is one of the major unsung (and underfunded) heroes of the Internet."

IESG (Internet Engineering Steering Group)

"The IESG is responsible for technical management of IETF activities and the Internet standards process. It administers the process according to the rules and procedures that have been ratified by the ISOC Trustees. However, the IESG doesn't do much direct leadership, such as the kind you will find in many other standards organizations. The IESG ratifies or corrects the output from the IETF's Working Groups [WGs], gets WGs started and finished, and makes sure that non-WG drafts that are about to become [Requests for Comment, or RFCs] are correct..."

IAB (Internet Architecture Board)

"The IAB is responsible for keeping an eye on the 'big picture' of the Internet, and focuses on long-range planning and coordination among the various areas of IETF activity. The IAB stays informed about important long-term issues in the Internet, and brings these topics to the attention of people they think should know about them. IAB members pay special attention to emerging activities in the IETF. When a new IETF working group is proposed, the IAB reviews its charter for architectural consistency and integrity. Even before the group is chartered, the IAB members are more than willing to discuss new ideas with the people proposing them..."

IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority)

"The core registrar for the IETF's activities is the IANA. Many Internet protocols require that someone keep track of protocol items that were added after the protocol came out... The IAB has designated the IANA organization to perform these tasks, and the IANA's activities are financially supported by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

"...Nowadays the IETF is generally no longer involved in the IANA's domain name and IP address assignment functions, which are overseen by ICANN..."

RFC Editor

"The RFC Editor edits, formats, and publishes Internet Drafts as RFCs, working in conjunction with the IESG. An important secondary role is to provide one definitive repository for all RFCs (see http://www.rfc-editor.org). Once an RFC is published, it is never revised. If the standard it describes changes, the standard will be re-published in another RFC that 'obsoletes' the first..."

IETF Secretariat

"There are, in fact, a few people who are paid to maintain the IETF. The IETF Secretariat provides day-to-day logistical support, which mainly means coordinating face-to-face meetings and running the IETF-specific mailing lists (not the WG mailing lists). The Secretariat is also responsible for keeping the official Internet Drafts directory up to date and orderly, maintaining the IETF website, and for helping the IESG do its work. The IETF Secretariat is financially supported by the fees of the face-to-face meetings."

The IETF work areas include:

• Applications (APP) - Protocols seen by user programs, such as e-mail and the Web
• General (GEN) - Catch-all for WGs that don't fit in other areas (which is very few)
• Internet (INT) - Different ways of moving IP packets and DNS information
• Operations and Management (OPS) Administration and monitoring
• Routing (RTG) - Getting packets to their destinations
• Security (SEC) - Authentication and privacy
• Transport (TSV) - Special services for special packets
• Sub-IP - Technologies such as MPLS, GMPLS, MPLS-based VPNs, MPLS Traffic Engineering, etc.

As explained in The Tao of the IETF, "The IETF is run by rough consensus, and it is the IESG that decides if a WG has come up with a result that has a real consensus. Because of this, one of the main reasons that the IESG might block something that was produced in a WG is that the result did not really gain consensus in the IETF as a whole, that is, among all of the Working Groups in all areas. For instance, the result of one WG might clash with a technology developed in a different Working Group. An important job of the IESG is to watch over the output of all the WGs to help prevent IETF protocols that are at odds with each other. This is why [Area Directors, or ADs] are supposed to review the drafts coming out of areas other than their own."