Hubert Zimmermann (15 November 1941 – 9 November 2012) was a French software engineer and a pioneer of

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

ing.

Biography

Zimmermann was educated at

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

and

École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région ...

. 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 ChorusOS is a microkernel real-time operating system designed as a message passing computing model. ChorusOS began as the Chorus distributed real-time operating system research project at the French Institute for Research in Computer Science an ...

series of distributed operating systems. He participated in the International Networking Working Group from 1972, initially chaired by Vint Cerf. He was acknowledged by Bob Kahn and Cerf in their seminal 1974 paper on internetworking, "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 international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...

as it developed the

Open Systems Interconnection The Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI model) is a conceptual model that 'provides a common basis for the coordination of SOstandards development for the purpose of systems interconnection'. In the OSI reference model, the communicatio ...

protocols. He then worked for

France Télécom Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 5 ...

in 1980 through 1986. He developed and promoted the

OSI reference model The Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI model) is a conceptual model that 'provides a common basis for the coordination of SOstandards development for the purpose of systems interconnection'. In the OSI reference model, the communications ...

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. He was a founder of

Chorus Systèmes SA Chorus Systèmes SA was a French software company that existed from 1986 to 1997, that was created to commercialise research work done at the Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique (INRIA). Its primary product was the ...

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. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

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 UDcast was a company that provided products for Internet Protocol (IP) over broadcast media. It developed technology for IP networks over satellite and servers to provide television on mobile networks. History UDcast was involved in internationa ...

. 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". 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