Radia Perlman facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Radia Perlman
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| Born | December 18, 1951 |
| Alma mater | MIT |
| Known for | Network and security protocols; computer books |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer Science |
| Institutions | Intel |
| Thesis | Network layer protocols with Byzantine robustness (1988) |
| Doctoral advisor | David D. Clark |
Radia Joy Perlman (born December 18, 1951) is an American computer expert. She is a network engineer and programmer. Many people call her the "Mother of the Internet." This is because she helped create the technology that makes the internet work today.
Radia Perlman is most famous for inventing the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP). This invention is super important for how computer networks connect. It helps networks work smoothly and reliably. Her ideas have greatly changed how networks organize themselves. They also changed how data moves around the world.
She has received many awards for her work. In 2014, she joined the Internet Hall of Fame. She also joined the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2016. She holds over 100 patents for her inventions. A patent is like a special permission that protects an invention.
More recently, she created the TRILL protocol. This new protocol fixes some older issues with spanning trees. It helps Ethernet networks use their full speed. As of 2022, she works as a Fellow at Dell Technologies.
Contents
Radia Perlman's Early Life
Radia Perlman grew up in Loch Arbour, New Jersey. Her parents were both engineers for the US government. Her dad worked with radar. Her mom was a mathematician who became a computer programmer.
Radia found math and science easy and fun in school. She also did well in other subjects. She enjoyed playing the piano and French horn. Her mom helped her with math. But they mostly talked about books and music.
Radia was the best science and math student in her school. Yet, she only thought about a computer career after taking a programming class. She was the only girl in that class. She once said she wasn't a "hands-on" person. She thought she might break things if she tried to fix them. She finished high school in 1969.
Her Education Journey
Radia Perlman went to MIT for college. There, she learned programming for a physics class. In 1971, she got her first paid job. She worked part-time at the LOGO Lab at MIT. She programmed system software, like tools to find errors.
She worked with a professor named Seymour Papert. Radia helped create a simple version of the LOGO language. This version was for young children. It was called TORTIS. From 1974 to 1976, young kids used TORTIS. Some were as young as 3½ years old. They programmed a robot called a Turtle. Radia is known as a pioneer in teaching young children computer programming.
Later, as a math graduate student at MIT, she joined a group at BBN Technologies. This is where she started designing network protocols. She earned her degrees from MIT. She got a bachelor's and master's in Math. She also got a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1988. Her Ph.D. work was about how to send data safely. This included dealing with network failures.
When she was at MIT in the late 1960s, there were very few women students. About 50 women were in a class of 1,000 students. At first, MIT had only one dorm for women. This limited how many women could study there. When men's dorms became coed, Radia moved to a mixed dorm. She became the "resident female" there. She later said she got used to the gender difference. It felt normal to her.
Radia Perlman's Career
After college, Radia worked for Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN). This company created software for network equipment. While at BBN, she impressed a manager from Digital Equipment Corp. She was offered a job there and joined in 1980.
At Digital, she quickly found a solution for a big problem. This solution was the Spanning Tree Protocol. It helps networks send data reliably. It allows networks to have backup connections. If one connection fails, another can take over. This creates a single, active path for data. Radia is most famous for STP. It is key to how network bridges work in many networks.
Radia Perlman has also written important books. One is about networking, called "Interconnections." Another is about network security. This book is popular in colleges. Her work in security includes how to trust online information. It also covers how to make data expire.
She left Digital in 1993 and joined Novell. Then, in 1997, she joined Sun Microsystems. Throughout her career, she has earned over 200 patents. She taught classes at many universities. These include the University of Washington and Harvard University. She has also given speeches all over the world.
Spanning Tree Protocol Explained
Radia Perlman invented the spanning tree algorithm and protocol. She was working at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1984. Her task was to create a simple way for network devices to find loops. Loops happen when there is more than one path to the same place. In a local area network (LAN), loops can cause the network to crash.
If a network had many paths, data could get stuck. It might go in circles and never reach its goal. This would flood the network. Radia used the fact that network devices have unique addresses. She created a protocol that let these devices talk to each other.
Her algorithm helps all devices in a network choose one "root bridge." Then, each device maps the network. It finds the shortest path to the root bridge. It then turns off other extra paths. This makes sure there is only one clear path for data.
Radia was worried that it took STP about a minute to react to changes. During this time, a loop could still crash the network. But the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) made it a standard. Radia said the best part of STP is that "you don't have to worry about topology." This means you don't need to plan the network connections perfectly.
Radia Perlman even wrote a poem about STP. It's called 'Algorhyme':
I think that I shall never see
A graph more lovely than a tree.
A tree whose crucial property
Is loop-free connectivity.
A tree which must be sure to span
So packets can reach every LAN.
First the root must be selected.
By ID it is elected.
Least cost paths from root are traced.
In the tree these paths are placed.
A mesh is made by folks like me
Then bridges find a spanning tree.—Radia Perlman
Other Network Inventions
Radia Perlman also designed other important network protocols. These include DECnet IV and V. She also helped create IS-IS, which is like OSPF. She made big contributions to the Connectionless Network Protocol (CLNP).
She worked with Yakov Rekhter on network routing standards. These help data find its way across large networks. At DEC, she also helped change how networks found paths. They moved from older methods to "link-state routing protocols." These new protocols adapted faster to network changes.
Radia also helped improve the intermediate-system to intermediate-system routing protocol, known as IS-IS. This made it able to route different types of internet traffic. The Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol also used her ideas. Her ideas helped make sure routing information was sent reliably.
Later, Radia worked for Sun Microsystems, which is now Oracle. She focused on network and security protocols. While at Oracle, she earned over 50 patents.
When her work on TRILL became a standard, she included a second version of her poem:
I hope that we shall one day see
A graph more lovely than a tree.
A graph to boost efficiency
While still configuration-free.
A network where RBridges can
Route packets to their target LAN.
The paths they find, to our elation,
Are least cost paths to destination!
With packet hop counts we now see,
The network need not be loop-free!
RBridges work transparently,
Without a common spanning tree.—Ray Perlman, RFC 6325
Awards and Honors
- Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (2016)
- National Inventors Hall of Fame (2016)
- Internet Hall of Fame (2014)
- SIGCOMM Award (2010)
- USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award (2006)
- First Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Award for Innovation (2005)
- Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association Inventor of the year (2003)
- Honorary Doctorate, Royal Institute of Technology (2000)
- Named one of the 20 most influential people in the industry by Data Communications magazine twice (1992 and 1997). She is the only person to be on both lists.
- IEEE Fellow (2008) for her work on network routing and security.
See also
In Spanish: Radia Perlman para niños
