R
We all know in our own minds what a good protocol is, but what are the factors that make protocols good.
For example (and without wishing to light too many fires)
Basic ethernet is a good protocol for LANs, well understood, lots of application, easily suited for its environment, can carry a number of
different transport and network protocols.
IP is a good network protocol for peer to peer communication
TCP is a good connection orientated protocol
and without the interaction of these three protocols at the t-profile I could not send this message. By contrast, modbus is a bad protocol to
try to send an email, but it is a good protocol when you want to control plant.
So what are the features necessary to make a protocol good?
Determinism is important for timely transmission, but difficult to handle on dynamically adaptive networks without some form of network configuration management.
Wide bandwidth is important for large traffic flows but does that imply narrow bandwidth is bad in general?
I don't want to start a flame war over 'my protocol is better than yours'; as far as I care, all of the implemented ones are as good as each other wrt their own fields of application.
My motivation for the question is the need to review an adapter to translate the a-profile to any t-profile. Knowing the factors that drive
the layers in the t-profile defines the behaviour of the adapter. The t-profile implementation cannot be faulted but I suspect that the choice of profile is sub-optimal.
Your thoughts on this matter are gratefully appreciated.
Richard
--
Richard McMahon | Tel.: +44 117 954 5160
Safety Systems Research Centre | FAX: +44 117 954 5208
University of Bristol |
For example (and without wishing to light too many fires)
Basic ethernet is a good protocol for LANs, well understood, lots of application, easily suited for its environment, can carry a number of
different transport and network protocols.
IP is a good network protocol for peer to peer communication
TCP is a good connection orientated protocol
and without the interaction of these three protocols at the t-profile I could not send this message. By contrast, modbus is a bad protocol to
try to send an email, but it is a good protocol when you want to control plant.
So what are the features necessary to make a protocol good?
Determinism is important for timely transmission, but difficult to handle on dynamically adaptive networks without some form of network configuration management.
Wide bandwidth is important for large traffic flows but does that imply narrow bandwidth is bad in general?
I don't want to start a flame war over 'my protocol is better than yours'; as far as I care, all of the implemented ones are as good as each other wrt their own fields of application.
My motivation for the question is the need to review an adapter to translate the a-profile to any t-profile. Knowing the factors that drive
the layers in the t-profile defines the behaviour of the adapter. The t-profile implementation cannot be faulted but I suspect that the choice of profile is sub-optimal.
Your thoughts on this matter are gratefully appreciated.
Richard
--
Richard McMahon | Tel.: +44 117 954 5160
Safety Systems Research Centre | FAX: +44 117 954 5208
University of Bristol |