A reliable protocol for processing within IP-routed networks

The task of an Internet router is to scan the IP headers for the destination address and make a routing decision based on the information. If the processing capability of a router is enhanced to support computation on a datagram, some of the host computation may be delegated to the intermediate routers. The instructions about how to do the processing may be provided by the end hosts. We propose a reliable transport layer protocol, Intermediate Processing Protocol (IPP) for processing within the Internet. The protocol design makes provisions for connection set up handshake, router reservation, intermediate processing, data acknowledgement, buffering and retransmission, flow and congestion control, ordered delivery and security issues.