scope:

The scope of this Recommended Standard is the specification of the binding in terms of technology mapping to TCP/IP of:

a) MAL message;

b) MAL Transport Interface.

The MAL Blue Book (reference [1]) specifies the MAL protocol in an abstract way, i.e., without defining the concrete Protocol Data Units (PDUs). The MAL Binding to TCP/IP Transport and Split Binary Encoding specifies a complete and unambiguous mapping of:

a) the MAL message to a binary PDU to be transmitted over TCP/IP;

b) the MAL transport interface to the TCP/IP interface;

c) the MAL data types to a binary encoding format (split binary encoding).

This Recommended Standard does not specify:

a) individual implementations or products;

b) the implementation of entities or interfaces within real systems;

c) recommendations or best practices for deploying systems with proxies and/or firewalls;

d) a direct mapping to the socket API, as the TCP protocol specification (reference [4]) is unambiguously used for the mapping.

In a concrete deployment, on-the-wire interoperability between Application Layer MO service consumer and provider will be achieved by encoding the abstract MAL messages in the concrete split binary encoding and transmitting them by means of TCP/IP PDUs, as defined in this Recommended Standard.