Van Jacobson (born 1950) is an American computer scientist, renowned for his work on

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

network performance and scaling.2001 SIGCOMM Award for Lifetime Achievement
to Van Jacobson "for contributions to protocol architecture and congestion control." He is one of the primary contributors to the TCP/IP protocol stack—the technological foundation of today’s Internet. Since 2013, Jacobson is an adjunct professor at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

(UCLA) working on

Named Data Networking Named Data Networking (NDN) (related to content-centric networking (CCN), content-based networking, data-oriented networking or information-centric networking (ICN)) is a proposed Future Internet architecture inspired by years of empirical resear ...

Early life and education

Jacobson studied Modern Poetry, Physics, and Mathematics and received an M.S. in physics and a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Arizona. He did graduate work at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.

Career

His work redesigning

's congestion control algorithms ( Jacobson's algorithm) to better handle congestion is said to have saved the Internet from collapsing in the late 1980s and early 1990s."Van Jacobson: 2002 IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award Recipient"
IEEE web site He is also known for the TCP/IP Header Compression protocol described in RFC 1144: ''Compressing TCP/IP Headers for Low-Speed Serial Links'', popularly known as Van Jacobson TCP/IP Header Compression. He is the co-author of several widely used network diagnostic tools, including

traceroute In computing, traceroute and tracert are computer network diagnostic commands for displaying possible routes (paths) and measuring transit delays of packets across an Internet Protocol (IP) network. The history of the route is recorded as th ...

tcpdump tcpdump is a data-network packet analyzer computer program that runs under a command line interface. It allows the user to display TCP/IP and other packets being transmitted or received over a network to which the computer is attached. Distribut ...

, and pathchar. He was a leader in the development of the multicast backbone (MBone) and the multimedia tools vic, vat, and wb. Jacobson worked at the

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...

from 1974 to 1998 as a Research scientist in the Real-time Controls Group and later group leader for the Network Research Group. He was Chief Scientist at

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

from 1998 to 2000. In 2000 he became Chief Scientist for Packet Design, Inc. and in 2002 for a spin-off, Precision I/O. He joined PARC as a research fellow in August 2006. In January 2006 at Linux.conf.au, Jacobson presented another idea about network performance improvement, which has since been referred to as ''network channels''. Jacobson discussed his ideas on

Named data networking Named Data Networking (NDN) (related to content-centric networking (CCN), content-based networking, data-oriented networking or information-centric networking (ICN)) is a proposed Future Internet architecture inspired by years of empirical resear ...

(NDN), the focus of his work at PARC, in August 2006 as part of the ''Google Tech Talks''. Van Jacobson is now working with the NDN Consortium funded by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

to explore and create the future of the internet.

Awards and memberships

Van Jacobson together with his colleague at LBL, Steven McCanne, won R&D Magazine's 1995 R&D 100 Award for development of a software toolpack that enables multiparty audio and visual conferencing via the MBone (Multicast Backbone). For his work, Jacobson received the 2001 ACM SIGCOMM Award for Lifetime Achievement "for contributions to protocol architecture and congestion control", the 2002

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award Koji, Kōji, Kohji or Kouji may refer to: * Kōji (given name), a masculine Japanese given name * Kōji (Heian period) (康治), Japanese era, 1142–1144 * Kōji (Muromachi period) (弘治), Japanese era, 1555–1558 *Koji orange, a Japanese citr ...

, and was elected to the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

in 2004 for his "contributions to network protocols, including multicasting and the control of congestion." In 2012, Jacobson was inducted into the

Internet Hall of Fame The Internet Hall of Fame is an honorary lifetime achievement award administered by the Internet Society (ISOC) in recognition of individuals who have made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the Internet.

by the

Internet Society The Internet Society (ISOC) is an American nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1992 with local chapters around the world. Its mission is "to promote the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people ...

.2012 Inductees

website. Last accessed April 24, 2012

References

External links

* *
Van Jacobson Denies Averting Internet Meltdown in 1980s
(Cade Metz,

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...

, 2012-05-25) {{DEFAULTSORT:Jacobson, Van American computer scientists Computer systems researchers Internet pioneers Living people Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering 1950 births Scientists at PARC (company)

Early life and education

Career

Awards and memberships

See also

References

External links