Bandwidth usage analysis of Service Location Protocol

A resource discovery protocol allows networked embedded processors and handheld devices to discover each other´s capabilities. The Service Location Protocol (SLP) has been proposed by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) for that purpose. The usage of bandwidth, or the amount of traffic, that such a protocol makes is a characteristic that is particularly relevant when devices are mobile and wireless. Protocols that are less chatty are more desirable because wireless bandwidth is a scarce resource as well as mobile device power. The goal of this work is to characterize the usage of bandwidth SLP makes and to contrast it with the usage of bandwidth that JINI makes, which is another resource discovery protocol. We present equations characterizing the usage of bandwidth made by SLP and JINI