RFC 942 (rfc942) - Page 2 of 68

Transport protocols for Department of Defense data networks

RFC 942                                                    February 1985
Report Transport on Protocols

has well satisfied its requirements by its own tried and proven
protocols, the agency has invested heavily in systems operating
successfully with TCP, and the Armed Forces is increasingly adopting the
protocol.  Thus, although DOD's policy is to use commercial standards
whenever suitable, it is hesitant about converting to the ISO TP-4
protocols.  In addition, the DOD is not certain whether the ISO TP-4
completely satisfies military requirements.

In 1983 both DOD and the ICST agreed that an objective study of the
situation was needed.  Each requested assistance from the National
Research Council.  The National Research Council, through its Board on
Telecommunications and Computer Applications (BOTCAP), appointed a
special Committee on Computer-Computer Communication Protocols to study
the issues and develop recommendations and guidelines for ways to
resolve the differences in a mutually beneficial manner.

 The six items composing the committee's scope of work are as follows:

 1.   Review the technical aspects of the DOD transmission control and
      ICST transport protocols.

 2.   Review the status of the implementation of these protocols.

 3.   Review the industrial and government markets for these protocols.

 4.   Analyze the technical and political implications of the DOD and
      ICST views on the protocols.

 5.   Report on time and cost implications to the DOD, other federal
      entities, and manufacturers of the DOD and ICST positions.

 6.   Recommend courses of action toward resolving the differences
      between the DOD and ICST on these protocol standards.

The committee devoted considerable effort to reviewing the objectives
and goals of the DOD and NBS that relate to data communications, the
technical aspects of the two protocols, the status of their
implementation in operating networks, and the market conditions
pertaining to their use. This process included hearing government and
industry presentations and reviewing pertinent literature.  The results
of this part of the study are presented in Sections II through VII.
Concurrent with this research and analysis, the committee developed ten
possible options that offered plausible resolutions of the problem.
These ranged from maintaining the status quo to an immediate switchover
from one protocol to the other. From these ten initial options three
were determined to hold the greatest potential for resolving the
problem.

Section VIII describes the three options, Section IX provides a cost
comparison, and Section X provides an overall evaluation of the three
options.  Section XI presents the committee's basic and detailed
recommendations for how best the DOD might approach the differences
between its protocol and the ISO protocol.

National Research Council