distribution and replication protocol (DRP)

Software distribution on the Internet is extremely data-intensive. The Distribution and Replication Protocol(DRP), which is a supplement to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol( HTTP), is intended to reduce the volume of data traffic when distributing software.

The basic idea of the DRP protocol is based on the fact that with updates only those files are transferred, which changed. To this end, the DRP protocol can be used to replicate hierarchical file structures on clients.

The DRP protocolchecks the file contents with a checksum procedure and can thus detect changes. For this purpose, the HTTP header has been extended by two data fields that provide the content and the content difference with their own ID numbers.