Application-layer framing or application-level framing (ALF) is a method of allowing an application to use its

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and compu ...

for the design of its

network protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchroni ...

s. This procedure was first proposed by D. D. Clark and

David L. Tennenhouse David Lawrence Tennenhouse (born c. 1957) is a Canadian–American computer researcher and technology executive. Life Tennenhouse was born about 1957 in Ottawa, Canada. He received a bachelor's and master's degree in electrical engineering from t ...

.Clark, D. D. and Tennenhouse, D. L. (1990). Architectural considerations for a new generation of protocols. In: ''ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review archive'' Volume 20, Issue 4 (September 1990), Pages 200 - 208, ISSN 0146-483

/ref> It works as follows: * The application splits the data into useful segments. ** These segments are called ADUs (application data units). * The ADUs can be processed in any order. * The lower layers keep the ADU borders. This procedure simplifies the

quality of service Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network, or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitat ...

negotiation and provides a simpler method of

error checking In information theory and coding theory with applications in computer science and telecommunication, error detection and correction (EDAC) or error control are techniques that enable reliable delivery of digital data over unreliable communic ...

. The

Real-time Transport Protocol The Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) is a network protocol for delivering audio and video over IP networks. RTP is used in communication and entertainment systems that involve streaming media, such as telephony, video teleconference applicati ...

(RTP) is an example of where the semantics of the real-time application are used to segment the data.

References

See also