Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!apple!bbn.com!craig
From: craig@bbn.com (Craig Partridge)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Reliable Datagram Protocol
Message-ID: <60240@bbn.BBN.COM>
Date: 21 Oct 90 14:15:47 GMT
References: <9010201341.AA18699@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: news@bbn.com
Reply-To: craig@ws6.nnsc.nsf.net.BBN.COM (Craig Partridge)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 21

In article <9010201341.AA18699@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> tmallory@BBN.COM writes:
>from rfc-index.txt.1174:
>1151  Partridge, C.; Hinden, R.M.  Version 2 of the Reliable Data Protocol
>      (RDP).  1990 April; 4 p. (Format: TXT=8293 bytes)  (Updates RFC 908)
>
>[the first name for this protocol WAS Reliable Datagram Protocol]

A quick comment on RDP -- there's considerable misunderstanding about
what RDP is and is not.

When people ask for a reliable datagram protocol (and before Jon Postel
jumps on me, yes Jon, I know it is an oxymoron) what they typically
mean is a transaction protocol -- a protocol that allows them to exchange
data units reliably with multiple remote systems.  A sort of reliable
version of UDP.

RDP should be viewed as a record-oriented TCP.  I.e. RDP uses connections,
and transmits a reliable stream of delimited data.  It is not a transaction
protocol.

Craig