Hubert Zimmermann (15 November 1941 – 9 November 2012) was a French software engineer and a pioneering figure in

computer network A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

ing.

Biography

Education: Zimmermann was educated at

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

and École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications. Early Career and Contributions: His career began at Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique (INRIA) in Rocquencourt from 1972 through 1979, where he led research into what became ChorusOS series of distributed operating systems. He worked for

Louis Pouzin Louis Pouzin (born 20 April 1931) is a French computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He directed the development of the CYCLADES computer network in France the early 1970s, which implemented a novel design for packet communication. He was the ...

on the

CYCLADES The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...

project and participated in the

International Network Working Group The International Network Working Group (INWG) was a group of prominent computer science researchers in the 1970s who studied and developed Standardization, standards and communication protocol, protocols for interconnection of computer networks. Se ...

from 1972. He published several influential papers in the field of

internetworking Internetworking is the practice of interconnecting multiple computer networks. Typically, this enables any pair of hosts in the connected networks to exchange messages irrespective of their hardware-level networking technology. The resulting sys ...

and was acknowledged by

Vint Cerf Vinton Gray Cerf (; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Robert Kahn. He has received honorary degrees and awards that inclu ...

and

Bob Kahn Robert Elliot Kahn (born December 23, 1938) is an American electrical engineer who, along with Vint Cerf, first proposed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), the fundamental communication protocols at the hea ...

in their seminal 1974 paper, ''A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication''. In 1977, he was an early member of the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. M ...

as it developed the

Open Systems Interconnection The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is a reference model developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that "provides a common basis for the coordination of standards development for the purpose of systems inter ...

protocols. He developed and promoted the OSI reference model which became a popular way to describe network protocols, and published a paper on the model in 1980 and one with John Day in 1983. France Telecom: He then worked for France Télécom in 1980 through 1986. Chorus Systemes: Zimmerman was a founder of Chorus Systèmes SA in 1986, which commercialised the Chorus distributed microkernel operating system that had been created at INRIA. Chorus Systèmes was purchased by

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

in 1997, where he was director of telecom software engineering for 5 years. Then he invested in entrepreneurial high-tech companies such as Arbor Venture Management, Boost Your StartUp, Gingko Networks and UDcast. Awards and Recognition: In 1991, Zimmermann was awarded the SIGCOMM Award for "20 years of leadership in the development of computer networking and the advancement of international standardization". Death: On 9 November 2012, Zimmermann died in France.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zimmermann, Hubert 1941 births Place of birth missing 2012 deaths French computer scientists École Polytechnique alumni 20th-century French inventors 20th-century French engineers Internet pioneers

Biography

See also

References