A component-based architecture for software communication systems

We examine the usefulness of component-based software-engineering for the implementation of software communication systems. We present an architecture that allows to divide protocol software into fully de-coupled components that can be plugged together using visual builder tools to rapidly prototype flexible, robust, and application-tailored communication protocols. We show the feasibility of component-based protocol engineering by demonstrating how a simple transport protocol was realized. A discussion about advantages and impacts concludes this paper.