RFC 945 (rfc945) - Page 2 of 2

DoD statement on the NRC report

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RFC 945                                      DOD Statement on NRC Report

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE                                         April 1985
                     Assistant Secretary of Defense
                     Washington, D.C.,  20301-3040
Command, Control,
Communications
     and
Intelligence

MEMORANDUM FOR DIRECTOR, DEFENSE COMMUNICATIONS AGENCY

SUBJECT:  National Research Council Report on Transport Protocols for
          DoD Data Networks

     Attached is the final report on "Transport Protocols for Department
of Defense Data Networks" from the National Research Council (Board on
Telecommunications and Computer Applications, Commission on Engineering
and Technical Systems).  The report recommends that DoD immediately
adopt the International Standards Organization Transport Protocol (TP-4)
and Internetwork Protocol (IP) as a DoD co-standard to the current DoD
standard Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and IP and move ultimately
toward exclusive use of TP-4.

     Whenever international standards are available and can be used to
support military requirements, they will be implemented as rapidly as
possible to obtain maximum economic and interoperability benefits.
However, TP as a proven commercial offering is not available at this
time.  The progress of TP will be monitored carefully and once
commercially available, TP will be tested and evaluated for use in
military application.

     In order to insure that DoD is in a posture to evaluate TP once it
is in wider use in the commercial sector, request you initiate the
following actions:

   (1)  develop the DoD military requirement specification for TP to
        insure that industry is aware of DoD needs as TP is commercially
        implemented.

   (2)  insure that appropriate advisory representation is provided to
        commercial standards working groups that are currently refining
        TP under the auspices of the National Bureau of Standards.

   (3)  insure that the DCA protocol test facility can accommodate TP
        testing as required when commercial implementations are
        available.

   (4)  develop a transition strategy for Option 2 of the report to
        include estimated resource requirements.

   (5)  evaluate the detailed recommendations presented in the Report
        (pages 61-64) as they apply to Option 2.

                                                        Donald C. Latham

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