Rob Blokzijl

Carl Malamud interviews Rob Blokzijl, network manager for NIKHEF, the Dutch Insitute of High Energy Physics. NIKHEF has been one of the key sites for networking in Europe and Bockzijl has been the force behind that presence. During the darkest years of OSI hysteria, NIKHEF helped the lead the move to install and operate real networks around Europe. NIKHEF, geographically and spiritually colocated with CWI, the mathematics institute, has helped make Kruislaan 409 in Amsterdam one of the key hubs in European networking.

In this interview, we learn about the birth of RIPE, the IP users group for Europe. We also hear about what it was like to try and put networks together in an era of massive centrally planned information policies and functionally obese networking protocols.

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