2 Documentation Contents
This section describes the documents that are part of the Windows protocols documentation set and the information they contain. The following types of documents are defined:
Overview documents
Technical specifications
Reference documents
The sections that follow contain details of each document type.
As described in Relationships Among Documents (section 1.3.2), the overview documents and technical specifications are associated with various technical areas according to technology. Those relationships are listed in the following sections:
Technical Specification Cross-Reference Matrix (section 4.1)
Technical Area Cross-Reference Matrix (section 4.2)
Technology Collection Cross-Reference Matrix (section 4.3)
The following technical areas are covered by the documentation set:
Application services: Application services enable the components of an application to interoperate with components of other applications. These components can involve processes that are running on one or more computers or different operating systems.
Collaboration and communications: Collaboration and communications refers to services that facilitate interaction among people and enables client applications to locate each other on a network. The software used for collaboration includes application sharing, email, whiteboarding, sharing a calendar, instant messaging, and text chat. This technical area also includes protocols that enable content to be streamed over the Internet or an intranet and the creation, distribution, and playback of audio and video content.
Directory services: Directory services provide functionality for the centralized storage of identity and account information, as well as other forms of data such as group policies and printer location information. The protocols in this technical area make up the client and server behavior of Active Directory, which provides a foundation for authentication services in a domain environment, domain services, and directory replication services in Windows.
File, fax, and printing services: File, fax, and printing services refer to services for applications to access, share, manage and replicate files, and for managing and accessing fax and print systems in a distributed environment. This technical area also includes Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), which provide features and technologies that allow users to create, manage, and build their own collaborative websites.
Home server: Home server refers to services that enable two or more computers to connect directly to each other in order to communicate and to organize, share, and back up documents over a Home Server network. Home Server is a platform for private residences and small businesses that supports the management of devices within the household or on the Internet.
Multiplayer games: Multiplayer games refers to services that provide DirectPlay functionality for playing games over the Internet, including game configuration and connection, game state and event handling, communication between players, and remote configuration.
Networking: Networking refers to services that enable the communication of computers with each other over networks including wireless devices and links, IP transports, and client/server transports such as remote procedure call (RPC) and DCOM. This technical area includes protocols that support dynamic configuration of IP addresses, the enforcement of computer health policies, the management of Web services, and wireless service discovery.
Remote connectivity: Remote connectivity refers to services that allow users to access applications and data on a remote computer over a network. Remote connectivity includes remote desktop services protocols, which provide secure connections and communication between remote clients and servers and allow clients to use server applications and resources.
Security and identity management: Security and identity management refers to services for authentication and authorization, certificate management, rights management, and interoperability over the web. This technical area includes protocols that support identity verification, credential validation, and the process of granting a person, computer process, or device access to certain information, services or functionality, the protection and security of digital information, and Web services based on XML, SOAP and WSDL.
Systems management: Systems management refers to services that support clustering, configuration and administration of client and server computers, content indexing queries, remote device management, Group Policy enforcement, remote management of computer and network resources, performance monitoring and event logging, deployment and management of storage technologies, system infrastructure functionality, management of Common Information Model (CIM) objects, deployment of Microsoft product updates, and Windows name resolution for network basic input/output system (NetBIOS) names.
Terminal services: Terminal services provide functionality for communicating remote graphical desktop interaction and display data packets, and sound, file redirection, and print redirection data packets from client applications to a Windows server configured as a terminal server.