The TIP project: supporting advanced communications on high-speed networks

The current generation of transport systems best represented by the de facto standard TCP/IP has been designed for file transfer, virtual terminal and remote job entry applications. The protocols have been intended for networks with low bandwidth and high error rate compared to today´s networks. Now, due to the emergence of sophisticated distributed systems and high-speed networks, some insufficiencies have become apparent concerning the currently provided service capability and service performance of traditional transport systems. This paper presents a new transport system called TIP (Transport and Internetworking Package) which provides improved service capabilities and performance by introducing a new lightweight protocol family and, with regard to this, a well-adjusted protocol processing environment. Additionally, TIP is downwardly compatible to TCP/IP systems, so that applications may communicate independently of their selected transport system: TCP/IP or TIP