Yakov Rekhter

Yakov Rekhter is a network protocol designer and software programmer who was heavily involved in internet protocol development from its early stages. He was one of the leading architects and a major software developer of the NSFNET Backbone Phase II, and he co-designed the Border Gateway Protocol, the core routing protocol of the Internet. He is the author or co-author of more than eighty IETF Requests for Comments and worked at IBM, Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks over his career before retiring in January 2015. He was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2021 and received the IEEE Internet Award in 2025.