A client and server need to exchange information via messages. TCP and UDP provide the transport mechanisms to do this. The two processes also need to have a protocol in place so that message exchange can take place meaningfully. A protocol defines what type of conversation can take place between two components of a distributed application, by specifying messages, data types, encoding formats, and so on. This chapter looks at some of the issues involved in this process and gives a complete example of a simple client-server application.
Protocol Design
There are many possibilities and ...