Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-finlayson-mafp-02.txt

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:52:25 -0500

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.

	Title		: The Multicast Attribute Framing Protocol
	Author(s)	: R. Finlayson
	Filename	: draft-finlayson-mafp-02.txt
	Pages		: 5
	Date		: 19-Jan-98
	
The Internet has recently seen the emergence of applications that involve
the ongoing transmission, or ''pushing'', of structured data from a server to
one or more client nodes.  Most current applications send this data using
unicast communications - usually over TCP connections.  However, similar
applications can also be implemented using multicast-based protocols.
Multicast not only improves the scalability of this particular class of
application, but also makes possible an additional class of application in
which the participants can act as peers - sending data as well as receiving.
 
This Internet Draft describes the ''Multicast Attribute Framing Protocol''
(MAFP) - a generic, attribute-based data representation, intended for a
wide variety of multicast-based applications.  It is currently being used
to implement the ''multikit'' generic multicast session browser
(http://www.lvn.com/multikit).  This draft describes an early version of
MAFP that is likely to undergo changes in the future.  However, it is
being described now, in the hope that it will promote open discussion of
this and similar protocols - ideally leading to the adoption of an open,
interoperable standard for this class of application.

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