I-D ACTION:draft-finlayson-mafp-00.txt

[[e-mail]]

 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-00.txt
       Pages     : 4
       Date      : 01/17/1997

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 substantial 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.                                   

Internet-Drafts are available by anonymous FTP.  Login with the username
"anonymous" and a password of your e-mail address.  After logging in,
type "cd internet-drafts" and then
     "get draft-finlayson-mafp-00.txt".
A URL for the Internet-Draft is:
ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-finlayson-mafp-00.txt
 
Internet-Drafts directories are located at:	
	                                                
     o  Africa:  ftp.is.co.za                    
	                                                
     o  Europe:  ftp.nordu.net            	
                 ftp.nis.garr.it                 
	                                                
     o  Pacific Rim: munnari.oz.au               
	                                                
     o  US East Coast: ds.internic.net           
	                                                
     o  US West Coast: ftp.isi.edu               
	                                                
Internet-Drafts are also available by mail.	
	                                                
Send a message to:  [e-mail]. In the body type: 
     "FILE /internet-drafts/draft-finlayson-mafp-00.txt".
							
NOTE: The mail server at ds.internic.net can return the document in
      MIME-encoded form by using the "mpack" utility.  To use this
      feature, insert the command "ENCODING mime" before the "FILE"
      command.  To decode the response(s), you will need "munpack" or
      a MIME-compliant mail reader.  Different MIME-compliant mail readers
      exhibit different behavior, especially when dealing with
      "multipart" MIME messages (i.e., documents which have been split
      up into multiple messages), so check your local documentation on
      how to manipulate these messages.
							
							

Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant mail reader 
implementation to automatically retrieve the ASCII version
of the Internet-Draft.

ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-finlayson-mafp-00.txt"><ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-finlayson-mafp-00.txt>