Increasing the portability and re-usability of protocol code
IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON)
Transmission of DVB Service Information via Internet
INTERWORKING '00 Proceedings of the 5th IFIP TC6 International Symposium on Next Generation Networks, Networks and Services for the Information Society
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Because protocol software is difficult and expensive to implement and test, it is often ported between systems instead of rewritten from scratch. Unfortunately, porting protocol software can be as difficult as from-scratch development, due to inherent differences in subsystem design. Thus, protocol subsystems can have a profound effect on the portability of a protocol implementation. We propose an approach permitting the incorporation of new protocols into a subsystem other than their ``native'' one without the drawbacks or expense of porting and original development. Our approach is based on protocol module encapsulation, which allows unmodified protocol code developed for one protocol subsystem to be used within another. We relate our experiences designing, implementing, and measuring the performance of our protocol encapsulation modules, using an AppleTalk protocol stack as a baseline.