IEEE Honors Internet Technology Leader, Dr. Paul Mockapetris

    REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and PISCATAWAY, N.J., March 31 /PRNewswire/ --
 Nominum, a pioneering provider of IP address infrastructure software, today
 announced that Paul V. Mockapetris, the company's chief scientist and
 chairman, is the 2003 recipient of the prestigious IEEE (Institute of
 Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Internet Award. The award recognizes
 Mockapetris for his invention of the domain name system (DNS) in collaboration
 with the late Jonathan Postel.
     Twenty years after its invention in 1983, DNS is an essential component of
 the Internet infrastructure. All Internet users depend on DNS every time they
 access a web URL or send an e-mail message, because the system translates
 words into the numbers needed to locate Internet resources. As the world's
 largest and busiest distributed database, the DNS handles billions of requests
 every day and was the first proof that database replication could be invisible
 and reliable at global scale. With every e-mail message sent or URL viewed, a
 request is made to multiple name servers scattered all over the globe. Today,
 enterprises depend on Dr. Mockapetris' invention to keep their online business
 operations running without interruption. Without DNS, the Internet would shut
 down very quickly.
     Sponsored by the Nokia Corporation, the IEEE Internet Award recognizes
 contributions to the advancement of Internet technology for network
 architecture, mobility and/or end-user applications. Mockapetris joins an
 elite list of Internet pioneers, which also includes Steve Crocker, Louis
 Pouzin, Paul Baran, Don Davies, Leonard Kleinrock, and Larry Roberts, who
 helped develop the network technologies that power the Internet. The award
 will be presented to Mockapetris on April 1, 2003, at the IEEE INFOCOM 2003
 event held in San Francisco.
     In 1983, Mockapetris and Dr. Jonathan Postel, director of the Computer
 Networks division at the University of Southern California's Information
 Sciences Institute (USC/ISI), and later the director of the Internet Assigned
 Numbers Authority (IANA), recognized the need for a global database of
 Internet names.
     Mockapetris joined ISI in 1978, and there developed the first SMTP email
 server. He held a number of positions at ISI, including director of the high
 performance computing and communications division. It was at ISI, in 1983,
 that Mockapetris invented the DNS. By 1986, his initial implementation of DNS
 was running on all of the Internet's root name servers.
     In 1995, Mockapetris left academia to become employee number two at @Home,
 where his efforts helped to bring broadband Internet to the home via cable
 modem. Mockapetris' decision to join Nominum in 1999 marked his renewed focus
 on DNS and IP addressing and the potential it holds for the future of the
 Internet.
     A member of the IEEE and the Association for Computing Machinery,
 Mockapetris has served as chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
 and the Research Working Group of the U.S. Federal Networking Council. He held
 the position of program manager for networking at the Advanced Research
 Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense, the organization
 that funded the creation of the Internet. Mockapetris also served on the
 Internet Architecture Board (IAB). His honors include the Distinguished
 Alumnus award from University of California at Irvine and the Postel Scholar
 award at the Postel Center for Experimental Networking at ISI.
     Mockapetris received his bachelor's degrees in physics and electrical
 engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his doctorate
 in information and computer science from the University of California at
 Irvine.
 
     About Nominum
     Nominum is a pioneering provider of IP address infrastructure software for
 enterprises that require reliable and secure DNS, DHCP and IP address
 management for their mission critical networks. Nominum is driving the future
 of IP addressing.  For more information about Nominum, go to www.nominum.com.
 
     About IEEE
     Through its members, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
 is a leading authority on areas ranging from aerospace, computers and
 telecommunications to biomedicine, electric power and consumer electronics.
 The IEEE produces 30 percent of the world's literature in the electrical and
 electronics engineering and computer science fields, has created more than 850
 active consensus standards and sponsors or cosponsors more than 350 technical
 conferences each year. Additional information about the IEEE can be found at
 www.ieee.org.
 
 

SOURCE  Nominum