Th re arch

caught on quickly and led to RPA T

(a wid area n twork tabli h d by
DARPA . Ba d on lea d lin and
pack t- witch d n twork RPA ET
und rwent e plo iv gr wth. In 19 0
DARPA tart d witchin ARP ET
ov r to a n wly d v loped prot 01
uit : TCP/IP.
Hundr d of thou and of T P/IP-
ba d node prang up, link d over lo-
cal and wide area n twork . Th larg t
and mo t popular wid area n twork for
T P/IP i what i n w known th In-
tern t. AI th larg number of nod
and wid area network put T P/IP to an
early and d manding trial. n u ntly,
th TCP/IP prot 01 haY n t t d
und r heavy fire in all kind of n twork-
ing environm n . TCP/IP' performanc
h al 0 contributed to it u
YI t anoth r r a on for T P/IP
popularity i that it
pr t 01 ar in th
public domain. Any-
on can writ a
TCP/IP impl m n-
tation without g tting
a lic n or perform-
ing any oth r admin-
i trativ pr dur.
Unlik c pyrighted
tandard lik 0 I
T P/IP i availabl to
any n at v ry I w
co t. Ac ordin to J n
P t I editor of th of-
fi ial Int rn t tan-
dards, publi a h
I d to important contri-
bution by oftware
tartup programm
and v n tud nt , who
haY readily add d val-
u thr ughout th T P/IP-ba ed n t-
w rking nvironm nt.
Havin T P/IP in th publi domain
al 0 mad it attr tiv t n twor im-
pI m nt r. A a r ult impl m n-
tation cropped up on a vari ty of c m-
put . Particularly important wa th
in orporation of T P/IP into th B r -
application continu to appear. On of
the bigge t ucce e, for xampl ,ha
be n the Simple Mail Tran fer Protocol
MTP). Originally con ider d lik
TCP/IP, to be only an int rim olution,
th ervic ha clearly won out ov r
other approache .
Among th lik Iy r a on for
TCP/IP popularity i that th re haY
be n many pr totype implem ntation
of th prot 01 to t t a part of th
tandard proce . Thi ,in tum, h fur-
th r been aided by a very open proc
for participating in tandard -making
d ci ion.
What' more, di tribution ofth tan-
dard i fr . Thi i in harp contra t to
o I wh r many protocol becom
tandard without v r being imple-
mented, and where information can run
a much a ]0 per pag (inc th pro-
tocol ar copyright d).
,n w
hink of TCP/IP the te and
practical Old mobil of modem
protocol tack. It i old d pend-
able and not particularly fl hy. At
th sam tim ,i popularity make
it more like a Honda (it II i If).
How did TCP/IP (tran mi ion control
prot ol/intem twor protocol) be-
com 0 popular? Two word can ex-
plain it ucce : It work . And an old
adag , "If it i n't broken don't fix it n
explain it longevity.
We'v heard for year that TCP/IP
wa ju tat mporary olution-a tran-
ition until OSI (Open Sy t m Inter-
conn ction) would take over for open
y t m . Vendo of proprietary y-
tern -DECn t A, etWar and
oth -pay lip ervic to TCP/IP but
then go on to argue that their own prod-
uct are better.
But TCP/IP protocol pr vail. Their
b ic rvic g t
wid u ,and val-
ue-add d rvice
uch a Sun' et-
work Fil Sy tern
continu to appear.
Indeed, th future
of TCP/IP look
very good even in
th fac of more
mod rn protocol
uit lik tho
offer d by OSI.
Iep/IP-A Dependable
etwor ing Infrastructure
by Carl aa ud
14 NETWOn COMPUTING A'RIL 1991
ti ularly wh n d aling with quick and
hort communication .
Which i prefi rred? If up to th r-
vic or u n th n twork. m r-
vi can u both tran port conn -
tion . Oth r r quire TCP to en ure that
data i not 10 1.
APRIL 1991 NETWORK COMPUTING IS
VIIIIN!-adftM
Th
all
vi
I' NETWOn COMPUTING APRil 1991
ant to
ring at
FOR MORE INFORMATION
c n d at low 0 t from a number of
diffi rent vendo .
Th re ult with th TCP/IP pr to-
col i a wid a ptan of both RPC
and XDR. Ov r a million comput are
now running th protocol, which up-
port all th maj r operating y t m .
Sun etwork Fil Sy t m ( F ),
which i built on top of RPC and XDR,
furth r h Ip th popularity of both of
th protocol. FS, al 0 fr Iy avail-
abl ,allow a fiI y tern on n com-
put r t appear a local fil y tern to
anoth r. A work tation can "mount"
file from a Cray, IBM mainfram ,
VAX or oth r platform and haY th m
all appear local fiI .
Wh n a protocol uit uch t-
info- r er b..n t
If you re on another y tern, u
th ir Int m t gateway.
For xample from MCI addre
mail a follow :
TO: I ( )
: Internet
8 :info- rver@Sb. .net
And if you're on Compu rv,
nd to:
>Internet:info-
Wh n nding your m ge, you
can leav th ubj ct lin blank.
In th body of th m ge, in-
clud two lin
R Q T:
TOPI : H LP
Finally, you'U g t a me g teU-
ing you how to get pecific d umen
A good tart i RFC1118, the
Hitchhik r' Guide to the Internet.
work Fil wid Iy im-
plem nted h t rogen u file y t m
work a r a rang of computing ar-
chil' ctuf .
With i wid a ceptance and popu-
larity till going trong-ju t th r-
Iiabl family dan continu to roll
t adily aJong-TCP/IP till ha plenty
m r mil I ft to go before it i re-
pia ed by 0 I.
Carl Malamud write profi s ional I"< if-
el"< nc book. H recently ompleted
Analyzing DECnet/OSI Phase V, to b
publish db Van Nostrand Reinhold.