Catalog
concept#Architecture#Integration#Reliability#Security

Network Protocol

A defined set of rules and formats for communication between network endpoints that ensures interoperability, sequencing, and error handling.

A network protocol defines a formal set of rules, conventions and message formats that enable communication between devices.
Established
Medium

Classification

  • Medium
  • Technical
  • Architectural
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Load balancers and API gatewaysMonitoring and observability stacks (e.g. Prometheus)Identity and access management systems

Principles & goals

Clear specification of formats and statesLayer separation and responsibility demarcationRobust error handling and fallback strategies
Build
Enterprise, Domain, Team

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Inconsistent implementations lead to interoperability issues
  • Lack of security mechanisms exposes attack vectors
  • Proprietary extensions create lock-in effects
  • Consider versioning and backward compatibility in the specification
  • Separate secure defaults and optional extensions clearly
  • Integrate automated interoperability tests into CI/CD

I/O & resources

  • Target requirements for throughput, latency and security
  • Network topology and addressing plan
  • Existing implementations and compatibility constraints
  • Formal protocol specification with versioning
  • Test cases and interoperability specifications
  • Monitoring and alerting metrics for operation

Description

A network protocol defines a formal set of rules, conventions and message formats that enable communication between devices. It covers layered architectures, error handling, state models and security mechanisms, thereby shaping performance, interoperability and system design decisions.

✔

  • Ensures interoperability between implementations
  • Predictable behavior and error handling
  • Basis for performance optimization and monitoring

✖

  • Protocol design can introduce additional latency overhead
  • Complex protocols complicate implementation and maintenance
  • Protocol changes require coordination across domains

  • Latency (Round-Trip Time)

    Duration for a request and its response; relevant for user experience and timeouts.

  • Throughput (bits/s or messages/s)

    Amount of successfully transmitted data per time unit; measures capacity and efficiency.

  • Error rate / packet loss

    Share of lost or malformed messages; affects reliability and retry strategies.

HTTP/HTTPS as an application protocol

HTTP defines request/response formats for web communication; HTTPS adds TLS for encryption.

TCP/IP suite for connection-oriented transfer

TCP provides reliable, ordered data transfer; IP addresses and routes packets across the network.

MQTT as lightweight telemetry protocol

MQTT provides a publish/subscribe model with low overhead for IoT and telemetry applications.

1

Define requirements and scope for the protocol.

2

Create formal specification (message formats, state diagrams).

3

Perform interoperability tests, monitoring and phased rollout.

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Unclear protocol versioning in production systems
  • Proprietary extensions without a refactor plan
  • Missing automated interoperability tests
Network latencyBuffer and memory managementProtocol parsing and CPU load
  • Using only application security instead of transport encryption for inter-domain traffic
  • Directly translating proprietary formats without fallback options
  • Enabling many optional features in resource-constrained environments
  • Underestimating header overhead impact on throughput
  • Missing test cases for rare failure scenarios
  • Ignoring MTU and fragmentation limits
Network protocol and OSI layer understandingExperience in protocol specification and testingKnowledge in security, cryptography and TLS
Interoperability across vendor boundariesScalability and performance requirementsSecurity and compliance requirements
  • • Resource-constrained endpoints with limited CPU/memory
  • • Backward compatibility with existing implementations
  • • Regulatory requirements for encryption and logging