Service discovery is the process of automatically detecting devices and services on a computer network. It aims to reduce the manual configuration effort required from users and administrators. A service discovery protocol (SDP) is a network protocol 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 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
  • Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP); its classification as a service discovery protocol is controversial
  • Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS)
  • Jini for Java 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, 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 networks with IPX
  • Service Location Protocol (SLP)
  • Session Announcement Protocol (SAP) used to discover RTP sessions
  • Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP), a component of Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)
  • Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI) for web services
  • Universal Service Discovery Protocol (USDP)
  • Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol (WPAD)
  • WS-Discovery (Web Services Dynamic Discovery)
  • XMPP Service Discovery (XEP-0030)
  • XRDS (eXtensible Resource Descriptor Sequence) used by XRI, OpenID, OAuth, etc.

See also

  • Discoverability
  • Semantic web

References

  • Service Discovery S-Cube Knowledge Model
  • Dong, H., Hussain, F.K., Chang, E.: Semantic Web Service matchmakers: State of the art and challenges[Online]. 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 Applications[Online] 45 (October 2014) pp. 134–150. Date accessed: 16 June 2015.