Formal methods for protocol conversion

Consideration is given to ways of overcoming a protocol mismatch using protocol conversion. Three different methods for finding a protocol converter are described. Two of these are bottom up in nature, and involve relating the conversion system to existing protocols. The third approach, which is new, is top down: the desired global properties of the conversion system are used in deriving the converter. An example is used to illustrate each method. The authors discuss more general forms of the abstract problem in the context of layered network architectures