What are RINA’s characteristics?
It has a common structure, composed by a single repeating layer (the Distributed IPC Facility).
It has a common structure, composed by a single repeating layer (the Distributed IPC Facility)..
The number of DIFs is decided by the network designer, depending on the number of scopes (link, network, internetwork…).
Each DIF provides IPC services to applications (which can be other DIFs) on top.
The IPC services are defined by the DIF API.
All DIFs have the same functions: depending on the scope, we decide the functions to apply. The functions are grouped in 3 categories: data transfer, data transfer control and layer management.
Applications – including other DIFs – can request IPC flows with certain characteristics (such as loss, delay, in-order delivery) via the API.
Each DIF has the same and only 2 protocol frameworks: one for data transfer and one for layer management (today’s protocols are HTTP, IP, TCP, UDP, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, LoRa… These are the most common but there are hundreds of them).
In order to customize the behaviour of a DIF to meet the scope’s requirements, each protocol framework has fixed parts, called mechanisms, and variable parts, called policies. That’s how we manage to do everything today’s hundreds protocols do with only 2 protocol frameworks.