Axon: Application-Oriented Lightweight Transport Protocol Design

This paper describes the application-oriented lightweight transport protocol for object transfer (ALTP-OT) in the Axon host communication architecture for distributed applications. The Axon Project is investigating an integrated design of host architecture, operating systems, and communication protocols to allow the utilization of the high band-width provided by the next generation of communication networks. ALTP-OT provides the end-to-end transport of segment and message objects for interprocess communication across a very high speed internetwork, supporting demanding applications such as scientific visualization and imaging. ALTP-OT uses rate-based flow control specifically oriented to the transfer of objects directly between application memory spaces. This document is intended to present the design of ALTP-OT, rather than serve as a complete specification and implementation report. It should be treated as a request for comments, and will be periodically updated to reflect comments form the research community and progress on Axon design and prototype implementation. Last revision April 5, 1990.