Windows Rally is a set of technologies from

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

intended to simplify the setup and maintenance of wired and

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

network-connected devices. They aim to increase reliability and security of connectivity for users who connect the devices to the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

or to computers running

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. These technologies provide control of network

quality of service Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network, or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitat ...

(QoS) and diagnostics for data sharing, communications, and entertainment. Windows Rally technologies provide provisioning for the following devices: *

Wireless access point In Computer networking device, computer networking, a wireless access point (WAP) (also just access point (AP)) is a networking hardware device that allows other Wi-Fi devices to connect to a wired network or wireless network. As a standalone ...

s, PCs, and servers * Network printers,

projectors A projector or image projector is an optical device that projects an image (or moving images) onto a surface, commonly a projection screen. Most projectors create an image by shining a light through a small transparent lens, but some newer typ ...

, printer bridges, digital still cameras, and

game console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location conne ...

s * Digital media receivers, network media players,

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also known as a cable converter box, cable box, receiver, or simply box, and historically television decoder or a converter, is an information appliance device that generally contains a Tuner (radio)#Television, TV tuner inpu ...

es,

digital photo frame A digital photo frame (also called a digital media frame) is a picture frame that displays digital photos without the need of a computer or printer. The introduction of digital photo frames predates tablet computers, which can serve the same p ...

s, and PDAs

Windows Rally technologies

Windows Rally includes the following set of technologies:

LLTD

The Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) protocol enables applications to discover devices and determine

network topology Network topology is the arrangement of the elements (Data link, links, Node (networking), nodes, etc.) of a communication network. Network topology can be used to define or describe the arrangement of various types of telecommunication networks, ...

. In

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

, it enables a graphical view of all the devices in the network on the ''Network Map''. For Windows XP computers to appear on the ''Network Map'', th
, url-status=dead LLTD Responder
must be downloaded and installed. Devices that provide audio or video playback or that are bandwidth sensitive can implement the ''QoS Extension'' part of the protocol so that they receive prioritized streams and that changes in available bandwidth have less impact on the playback experience.

qWAVE

Windows Vista includes qWAVE, a pre-configured quality of service API for time-dependent multimedia data, such as audio or video streams. qWAVE uses different packet priority schemes for real-time flows (such as multimedia packets) and best-effort flows (such as file downloads or e-mails) to ensure that real-time data gets delayed as little as possible, while providing a high-quality channel for other data packets. qWAVE-enabled applications together with devices that implement the LLTD QoS Extensions aim to improve an end user's experience of streaming video by prioritizing traffic and reducing the effects of network-related transient issues.

Windows Connect Now

Windows Connect Now (WCN) is the name of Windows Rally technologies aimed for simpler wireless device configuration. With Windows Connect Now, users running

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

SP2 can create network configuration settings and transmit them to the access point. Alternatively, users can also print the configuration settings for reference for manually configuring the device. With Windows Connect Now, one of the following methods may be used for easier configuration: * WCN-NET is Microsoft's implementation of the Wi-Fi Simple Config standard. It provides for configuration of devices using out-of-band

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

and in-band wireless networks. In Windows Vista, WCN-NET can discover an unconfigured router, access point,

base station Base station (or base radio station, BS) is – according to the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Radio Regulations (RR) – a " land station in the land mobile service." A base station is called '' node B'' in 3G, '' eNB'' in L ...

or a device such as a Media Center Extender by using

UPnP Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols on the Internet Protocol (IP) that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Gateway (telecommunications), Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile de ...

, authenticate with the device by using a personal identification number (PIN), provide wireless settings that are based on user selection and set up a wireless network over a wired Ethernet connection. Windows XP and earlier Windows versions do not support WCN-NET. * WCN-UFD uses an API and an

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

format that works with a wizard to write configuration files to a

USB Flash Drive A flash drive (also thumb drive, memory stick, and pen drive/pendrive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and u ...

for more secure wireless networks. Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later Windows operating systems supports WCN-UFD. * WCN-MTP includes a Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) extension that enables an ''MTP initiator'' to provide an ''MTP responder'' with configuration parameters for joining a wireless network and supports more secure configuration of MTP-capable devices on wireless networks. In Windows Vista, a temporary USB cable connection can be used for MTP-class devices such as portable media, digital cameras etc.

Devices Profile for Web Services

The ''Devices Profile for Web Services'' (DPWS) standard defines a minimal set of implementation constraints to enable secure

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 ...

messaging,

discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

description Description is any type of communication that aims to make vivid a place, object, person, group, or other physical entity. It is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as ''modes of discourse''), along with exposition, argumentation, and narr ...

, and

eventing Eventing (also known as three-day eventing or horse trials) is an equestrian event where the same horse and rider combination compete against other competitors across the three disciplines of dressage, cross-country, and show jumping. This ...

on resource-constrained devices. DPWS describes a set of requirements that enable a device to be discovered by clients and describe available services to those clients. DPWS is similar Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) but, it is fully aligned with

Web Services 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 ...

technology, supports standards for device connectivity such as WS-Discovery and WS-Eventing and includes numerous extension points allowing for integration of device-provided services in enterprise-wide application scenarios and roaming devices that work across the Internet. In Windows Vista, Web Services for Devices (WSDAPI) is an unmanaged code implementation of the ''Devices Profile for Web Services'' (DPWS) standard. The

Windows Communication Foundation The Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), previously known as Indigo, is a free and open-source runtime and a set of APIs in the .NET Framework for building connected, service-oriented applications. .NET Core 1.0, released 2016, did not s ...

(WCF) executes managed code and offers enterprise-level services for Web Services solutions on Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Function Discovery

To support

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) and WS-Discovery, and for extensible discovery to support other protocols, Windows Vista includes the ''Function Discovery'' API. Function Discovery serves as an abstraction layer between applications and devices, allowing applications to discover devices by referencing the device's function, rather than by its bus type or the nature of its connection. The Function Discovery API aims to create applications that enumerate system resources, use devices of a specific type and discover and manage lists of devices or objects, which are sorted by functionality or class, whether local or network connected. Function Discovery supports an extensible discovery provider model. Vendors can also create a custom provider to expose resources through Function Discovery.

Plug and Play Extensions (PnP-X)

PnP-X uses SSDP and WS-Discovery network communication protocols to make network-connected devices as discoverable as those that are connected directly to a computer over a bus such as

Universal Serial Bus Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

(USB). The device manufacturer implements PnP-X capabilities to supplement either UPnP or Web Services for Devices (WSD) enabled devices. As a result, for end users, the device is relatively as easy to install as traditional

Plug and Play In computing, a plug and play (PnP) device or computer bus is one with a specification that facilitates the recognition of a hardware component in a system without the need for physical device configuration or user intervention in resolving reso ...

devices. An association database service using this protocol was introduced in

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via Microsoft ...

under the name ''Device Association Framework''.

Universal Plug and Play

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is an IP-based protocol suite based on preliminary versions of Web Services protocols such as XML and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). With UPnP, a device can dynamically join a network, obtain an IP address, convey its capability, and discover the presence and capabilities of other devices on the network. Information about the set of services that a particular device type can provide is captured in an

device description document that the device hosts. The device description also lists properties such as device name and icons associated with the device. UPnP has been adopted widely for devices that interact in home network audio-video scenarios. UPnP is supported by

Windows Me Windows Me (Millennium Edition) is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and t ...

, Windows XP and Windows Vista. In Windows Vista, UPnP is integrated with PnP-X and Function Discovery.

References

External links

Windows Rally Technologies Homepage

Windows Rally Development Kit
{{Microsoft APIs Windows communication and services Network protocols Microsoft application programming interfaces Windows components