Multipurpose Transaction Protocol: A New Data Transport Model

The ability to deploy simulations globally led to a new goal — provide the engineers with an automated system for finding idle clusters, monitoring their jobs, and transferring the data for them. This led to the development of a custom embedded MTP/IP application that works beneath a web-browser front end to provide direct command and control functionality to both end-users and a central queue management server. DEI developed the underlying communication components so Motorola could concentrate on the user interface and system control components. The new “GlobalSim” system has since become the backbone of ACE’s services to Motorola’s engineers.

Now ACE engineers are looking beyond the ExpeDat products to create their own source level applications directly on top of the MTP/IP development kits. For those used to programming against the TCP socket model, MTP presents a cornucopia of choices and tools. These range from the Core SDK that provides direct access to simple transactions, up to the highly abstracted ExpeDat Client SDK that provides calland- forget document transfer to ExpeDat servers.

The advantage of this flexibility is substantial. Not only do software developers have an alternative to TCP, they have a robust variety of interfaces that can be adapted to their needs. Simple little things like being able to check how much data can fit into a buffer before you have to commit to writing it become big development time savers. Having the option to eliminate buffers and datacopying entirely is even better.

Engineers at Motorola, and elsewhere, are just beginning to design the next generation of applications that will take advantage of this new data transport model and the flexibility it offers. There will surely be challenges, as at least a new way of thinking about network possibilities is required. As they progress I expect to be able to report about previously unimagined applications of a truly high-performance Internet.

This article was written by Seth Noble, Ph.D, founder of Data Expedition, Inc. (Quincy, MA). For more information, contact Dr. Noble at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or click here.