The OSI95 Transport Service with Multimedia Support

The tremendous development of the communication environment with local area networks and broadband ISDN has opened the way for drastic changes in network performance and has introduced new services. Within the framework of Open Systems Interconnection (OSI), the goal of the ESPRIT project OSI95 (High Performance OSI Protocols with Multimedia Support on HSLANs and B-ISDN) was to design and formally specify a new transport service (and a transport protocol) able to meet the requirements of the new applications and to offer the services available at network and sub-network levels. This report gives an extended presentation of the new networking environment and the rationale for new standards, then presents the various tasks and goals of the OSI95 project.

The Networking Environment of the Nineties and the Need for New Standards.- The OSI95 Project.- The XTP Study.- Modelling and Analysing the Xpress Transfer Protocol (XTP).- Validation of the Xpress Transfer Protocol (XTP).- The Requirements of the New Applications.- Distributed Multimedia Communication System Requirements.- Orchestration Services for Distributed Multimedia Synchronisation.- Integrated Quality of Service for Multimedia Communications.- The OSI95 Transport Service Design.- The QoS Enhancements in OSI95.- A Method for Applying LOTOS at an Early Design Stage and Its Application to the ISO Transport Protocol.- The OSI95 Connection-Mode Transport Service.- The Connection Release Facilities in the OSI95 Transport Service.- The OSI95 Connectionless-Mode Transport Services.- On the Provision of a Fast Connect Facility in a Connection-Mode Transport Service.- The LOTOS Specification of the Enhanced Transport Service.- ATM and the New Communication Environment.- B-ISDN Services and their Relation with the OSI Protocol Reference Model.- ATM Network Services for Workstations.- Specific Studies.- Analysis of a Delay Based Congestion Avoidance Algorithm.- VLSI Support for Transport Protocols.- Time Extension of LOTOS.- Extended LOTOS.- The Tick-Tock Case Study for the Assessment of Timed FDTs.- Assessment of Extended LOTOS.- Standardisation.- OSI95 Contributions to ISO/IEC and ETSI.- Publications and Available Reports from OSI95.- Postscript.- Appendix: LOTOS Specification of the OSI95 Transport Service.