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Coloured Book protocols

For thecompact discstandards series, seeRainbow Books.For the series of U.S. government publications oncomputer securitystandards, seeRainbow Series.

TheColoured Book protocolswere a set ofcommunication protocolsforcomputer networksdeveloped in theUnited Kingdomin the 1970s. These protocols were designed to enable communication and data exchange between different computer systems and networks. The name originated with each protocol being identified by the colour of the cover of its specification document. The protocols were in use until the 1990s when theInternet protocol suitecame into widespread use.

History

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In the mid-1970s, the BritishPost Office Telecommunicationsdivision (BPO-T) worked with the academic community in the United Kingdom and the computer industry to develop a set of standards to enable interoperability among different computer systems based on theX.25 protocol suitefor packet-switchedwide area network(WAN) communication. First defined in 1975,[1]the standards evolved through experience developing protocols for theNPL networkin the late 1960s and theExperimental Packet Switched Servicein the early 1970s.[2][3][4][5][6]

The Coloured Book protocols were used on SERCnet from 1980,[7]and SWUCN from 1982,[8]both of which became part of theJANETacademic network from 1984.[9][10]The protocols were influential in the development of computer networks, particularly in the UK, gained some acceptance internationally as the first complete X.25 standard,[1][11]and gave the UK "several years lead over other countries".[12]

From late 1991,Internet protocolswere adopted on the Janet network instead; they were operated simultaneously for a while, until X.25 support was phased out entirely in August 1997.[13][14]

Protocols

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The standards were defined in several documents, each addressing different aspects of computer network communication. They were identified by the colour of the cover:[1][11]

Pink Book

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The Pink Book defined protocols for transport overEthernet.The protocol was basicallyX.25level 3 running overLLC2.

Orange Book

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The Orange Book defined protocols for transport over local networks using theCambridge Ring (computer network).

Yellow Book

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The Yellow Book defined the Yellow Book Transport Service (YBTS) protocol, also known as Network Independent Transport Service (NITS), which was mainly run over X.25. It was developed by the Data Communications Protocols Unit of the Department of Industry in the late 1970s. It could also run over TCP.[15]TheSimple Mail Transfer Protocolwas extended to allow running over NITS.[16]

The Yellow Book Transport Service was somewhat misnamed, as it does not fulfill the Transport role in the OSI 7-layer model. It really occupies the top of the Network layer, making up for X.25's lack of NSAP addressing at the time, which did not appear until the X.25 (1980) revision, and was not available in implementations for some years afterward. YBTS usedsource routingaddressing between YBTS nodes—there was no global addressing scheme at that time.

Green Book

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The Green Book defined two protocols to connect terminals across a network: an early version of what becameTriple-X PADrunning over X.25, and the TS29 protocol modelled on Triple-X PAD, but running over YBTS. It was developed byPost Office Telecommunications.These protocols are similar in functionality toTELNET.

Fawn Book

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The Fawn Book defined the Simple Screen Management Protocol (SSMP)

Blue Book

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The Blue Book defined the Network-Independent File Transfer Protocol (NIFTP), analogous to InternetFTP,running over YBTS. Unlike Internet FTP, NIFTP was intended forbatch moderather thaninteractiveusage.

Grey Book

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The Grey Book defined protocols fore-mailtransfer (not file transfer as is sometimes claimed), running over Blue Book FTP.

Red Book

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The Red Book defined the Job Transfer and Manipulation Protocol (JTMP), a mechanism for jobs to be transferred from one computer to another, and for the output to be returned to the originating (or another) computer, running over Blue Book FTP.

Legacy

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Further information:JANET NRS

Over time, as technology evolved, many of the concepts and principles from the Coloured Book Protocols were integrated into broader international standards. They remain an important part of the history and evolution of computer networking, showcasing an early effort to establish standards and protocols for efficient and reliable communication between computers. One famous quirk of Coloured Book was that components of hostnames usedreverse domain name notationas compared to the Internet standard. For example, an address might be[email protected]instead of[email protected].[7][17][18][19]

See also

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References

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  1. ^abcDavies, Howard; Bressan, Beatrice (2010-04-26).A History of International Research Networking: The People who Made it Happen.John Wiley & Sons. pp. 2–3.ISBN978-3-527-32710-2.
  2. ^Naughton, John (2015).A Brief History of the Future.Orion.ISBN978-1-4746-0277-8.
  3. ^Cambell-Kelly, Martin (1987)."Data Communications at the National Physical Laboratory (1965-1975)".Annals of the History of Computing.9(3/4):221-247.
  4. ^Smith, Ed; Miller, Chris; Norton, Jim (2017)."Packet Switching: The first steps on the road to the information society".National Physical Laboratory.
  5. ^Kirstein, Peter T. (2009). "The early history of packet switching in the UK".IEEE Communications Magazine.47(2): 18–26.doi:10.1109/MCOM.2009.4785372.S2CID34735326.
  6. ^Kirstein, P.T. (1999). "Early experiences with the Arpanet and Internet in the United Kingdom".IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.21(1): 38–44.doi:10.1109/85.759368.S2CID1558618.
  7. ^ab"6th UK Network Operators' Forum Meeting Agenda".www.uknof.org.uk.Archived fromthe originalon 2007-06-21.Retrieved2020-02-12.See "15:00 Starting the Commercial Internet in the UK (Peter Houlder)"
  8. ^"Computing Service History - BUCS - History and Archive - University Wiki".wiki.bath.ac.uk.Retrieved2022-12-21.
  9. ^Rutter, Dorian (2005).From Diversity to Convergence: British Computer Networks and the Internet, 1970-1995(PDF)(Computer Science thesis). The University of Warwick.
  10. ^Powell, Kit (1980-07-01)."Evolution of networks using standard protocols".Computer Communications.3(3): 117–122.doi:10.1016/0140-3664(80)90069-9.ISSN0140-3664.
  11. ^abEarnshaw, Rae; Vince, John (2007-09-20).Digital Convergence - Libraries of the Future.Springer Science & Business Media. p. 42.ISBN978-1-84628-903-3.
  12. ^"FLAGSHIP".Central Computing Department Newsletter(12). January 1991. Archived fromthe originalon 2020-02-13.Retrieved2020-02-13.
  13. ^"FLAGSHIP".Central Computing Department Newsletter(16). September 1991. Archived fromthe originalon 2020-02-13.Retrieved2020-02-13.
  14. ^"Janet(UK) Quarterly Report to the Janet Community: July 1997 to September 1997".Janet webarchive.1997. Archived fromthe originalon February 16, 2012.
  15. ^C. J. Bennett (12 August 1980)."The Yellow Book Transport Service: Principles and Status".rfc-editor.org.
  16. ^Jon Postel(August 1982).Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.IETF.sec. C.doi:10.17487/RFC0821.RFC821.
  17. ^Mansell, Robin; Mansell, Dixons Chair in New Media and the Internet Interdepartmental Programme in Media and Communications Robin (2002).Inside the Communication Revolution: Evolving Patterns of Social and Technical Interaction.Oxford University Press. p. 208.ISBN978-0-19-829656-0.
  18. ^Reid, Jim (2007-04-03)."The Good Old Days: Networking in UK Academia ~25 Years Ago"(PDF).UKNOF7.Manchester. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2008-05-28.Retrieved2008-04-16.
  19. ^The "Hidden" Prehistory of European Research Networking.Trafford Publishing.ISBN978-1-4669-3935-6.

Sources

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  • A Dictionary of Computing.Oxford University Press, 2004, s.v. "coloured book"
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