Towards tailoring protocols to application specific requirements

A prototype profiling method (formalized profile description and protocol configuration tool) for tailoring standard protocol options to the specific needs of an application is described. It is applicable to any protocol specified in ASN.1. The profiling of OSI application layer standards is used as a proof of concept. By applying the method to formalize the US government profiles, the author was able to reduce the source code size of major parts of common OSI applications by 30 to 50%.<<ETX>>