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Press Releases IEEE Honors Internet Technology Leader, Dr. Paul Mockapetris Mar 31 2003 REDWOOD CITY, Calif./ PISCATAWAY, NJ, March 31, 2003 – 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.