JBoss.orgCommunity Documentation

Chapter 1. Introduction to Mobicents SCTP Library

In computer networking, the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is a Transport Layer protocol, serving in a similar role to the popular protocols Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP). It provides some of the same service features of both: it is message-oriented like UDP and ensures reliable, in-sequence transport of messages with congestion control like TCP.

The protocol was defined by the IETF Signaling Transport (SIGTRAN) working group in 2000 and is maintained by the IETF Transport Area (TSVWG) working group. RFC 4960 defines the protocol. RFC 3286 provides an introduction.

Mobicents SCTP Library is providing the convenient API's over Java SCTP, hence can be used only with version JDK 1.7 or above.

In addition to exposing the SCTP protocol, Mobicents SCTP Library contains number of features which other wise the application depending on SCTP will have to take care of. For example Mobicents SCTP Library provides

Below diagram shows various layers involved

Layers involved

Figure 1.1. Layers involved