Service discovery is the process of automatically detecting devices and services on a
computer network
A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...
. It aims to reduce the manual configuration effort required from users and administrators. A service discovery protocol (SDP) is a
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 variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics, and synchronization of ...
that helps accomplish service discovery.
Service discovery requires a common language to allow software agents to make use of one another's services without the need for continuous user intervention.
Protocols
There are many service discovery protocols, including:
*
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...
Service Discovery Protocol (SDP)
*
Bonjour, e.g., Apple
AirPrint
*
DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD), a component of
zero-configuration networking
*
DNS, as used for example in
Kubernetes
Kubernetes (), also known as K8s is an open-source software, open-source OS-level virtualization, container orchestration (computing), orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Originally designed by Googl ...
*
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network protocol, network management protocol used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks for automatically assigning IP addresses and other communication parameters to devices connected to the netw ...
(DHCP); its classification as a service discovery protocol is controversial
*
Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS)
*
Jini for
Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
objects.
*
Lightweight Service Discovery (LSD), for mobile ad hoc networks
*
Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) standards-based neighbor discovery protocol similar to vendor-specific protocols which find each other by advertising to vendor-specific broadcast addresses (versus all-1's), such Cabletron (Enterasys) and Cisco Discovery Protocol (both referred to as CDP but different formats).
*
Local Peer Discovery
The Local Peer Discovery protocol, specified as BEP-14, is an extension to the BitTorrent (protocol), BitTorrent file-distribution system. It is designed to support the discovery of local BitTorrent (protocol), BitTorrent peers, aiming to minimiz ...
, or Local Service Discovery
*
Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP), usually used for unicast exchange of multicast source information between anycast Rendez-Vous Points (RPs) to service mcast clients.
*
Service Advertising Protocol used in
Novell NetWare
NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the Internetwork Packet Exchange, IPX network protocol. The f ...
networks with
IPX
*
Service Location Protocol (SLP)
*
Session Announcement Protocol (SAP) used to discover
RTP sessions
*
Simple Service Discovery Protocol
The Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) is a network protocol based on the Internet protocol suite for advertisement and discovery of network services and presence information. It accomplishes this without assistance of server-based configu ...
(SSDP), a component of
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)
*
Universal Description Discovery and Integration
Web Services Discovery provides access to software systems over the Internet using standard protocols. In the most basic scenario there is a ''Web Service Provider'' that publishes a service and a ''Web Service Consumer'' that uses this service. ...
(UDDI) for
web service
A web service (WS) is either:
* a service offered by an electronic device to another electronic device, communicating with each other via the Internet, or
* a server running on a computer device, listening for requests at a particular port over a n ...
s
Universal Service Discovery Protocol(USDP)
*
Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol
The Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) Protocol is a method used by clients to locate the URL of a configuration file using DHCP and/or DNS discovery methods. Once detection and download of the configuration file is complete, it can be executed to de ...
(WPAD)
*
WS-Discovery (Web Services Dynamic Discovery)
*
XMPP
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (abbreviation XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an Open standard, open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Ext ...
Service Discovery
XEP-0030
*
XRDS (eXtensible Resource Descriptor Sequence) used by
XRI,
OpenID
OpenID is an open standard and decentralized authentication protocol promoted by the non-profit OpenID Foundation. It allows users to be authenticated by co-operating sites (known as relying parties, or RP) using a third-party identity provi ...
,
OAuth
OAuth (short for open authorization) is an open standard for access delegation, commonly used as a way for internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information on other websites but without giving them the passwords. Th ...
, etc.
See also
*
Discoverability Discoverability is the degree to which something, especially a piece of content or information, can be found in a search of a file, database, or other information system. Discoverability is a concern in library and information science, many aspects ...
*
Semantic web
The Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0, is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable.
To enable the encoding o ...
References
External links
Service DiscoveryS-Cube Knowledge Model
* Dong, H., Hussain, F.K., Chang, E.
Semantic Web Service matchmakers: State of the art and challengesOnline]. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience 25(7) (May 2013) pp. 961–988. Accessed on June 16, 2015.
* Sun, L., Dong, H., Hussain, F.K., Hussain, O.K., Chang, E.
Cloud service selection: State-of-the-art and future research directions. Journal of Network and Computer ApplicationsOnline] 45 (October 2014) pp. 134–150. Date accessed: 16 June 2015.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Service Discovery
Internet protocols
Application layer protocols
Computer configuration
Service-oriented (business computing)