New Agreement Transfers NANOG Trademark and Resources

MIAMI, Feb. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- During a ceremony at NANOG51 in Miami, Steve Feldman of NewNOG Inc. and Donald Welch of Merit Network Inc. signed an agreement to transfer ownership of the North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) trademark, meeting archives, and domain (nanog.org) to NewNOG. The agreement comes after months of discussions between NewNOG, Merit Network, and University of Michigan.

"Today is a milestone in the history of NANOG," Feldman said during the ceremony. "With this agreement, which is effective on February 7, Merit Network is transferring the ownership of NANOG to NewNOG."

NANOG is an educational forum where the operators of backbone and enterprise networks share information and operational best practices. NANOG, formed in 1994, has become vital for professionals who make the Internet work. In addition to regular NANOG meetings, the NANOG email discussion list currently has over 10,000 members.

"NANOG is a vibrant community of networking professionals that has grown significantly over the years," said Don Welch, president and CEO of Merit Network. "Since 1994, Merit has worked diligently to nurture and support NANOG. We believe the NANOG community possesses the leadership and resources to continue as an important information exchange among network operators."

"The Internet operations community owes a large debt of gratitude to Merit Network for its role in founding and supporting NANOG since 1994," said Steve Feldman, chair of NewNOG's board of directors. "As NewNOG moves forward with the independent operation of the NANOG conferences, email discussion lists, and other activities, we look forward to Merit's continued participation as an integral part of the community."

About Merit Network

Merit Network Inc., a nonprofit corporation owned and governed by Michigan's public universities, owns and operates America's longest-running regional research and education network. Merit provides high-performance networking solutions to public universities, colleges, K-12 organizations, libraries, state government, healthcare, and other nonprofit organizations.

For more information: www.merit.edu

About NewNOG

NewNOG Inc. is a nonprofit corporation formed to promote dialog between people concerning the creation, maintenance and operation of Internet Protocol networks. NewNOG provides a forum where people from the network research community, the network operator community and the network vendor community can come together to identify and solve the problems that arise in operating and growing the Internet.

For more information: newnog.org

SOURCE Merit Network, Inc.