XRIP

XRIP, or eXtended Real-time Information Protocol, is a protocol suite intended for secure, low-latency exchange of information in distributed computing environments. It is designed to accommodate industrial automation, smart grids, IoT edge networks, and other situations requiring deterministic messaging and scalable operation across heterogeneous devices.

XRIP defines a layered architecture consisting of a data plane for streaming and a control plane for policy, authentication, and connection management. It supports multiple transport options (including UDP-based, TCP-like, and QUIC-based channels) and offers configurable reliability levels, timing guarantees, and quality-of-service mechanisms to prioritize latency-sensitive traffic.

Key features include time synchronization support, per-message deadlines, header compression for efficiency, and extensible headers for custom metadata. Security is addressed with mutual authentication, encryption in transit, and access control, with an emphasis on verifiable end-to-end integrity.

History and standards: XRIP was proposed by the XRIP Consortium in the mid-2010s. Draft specifications circulated in industry forums and later the Standards Council published baseline requirements for interoperability. Several reference implementations exist in open-source projects and vendor-provided SDKs.

Applications and reception: XRIP has seen adoption in research on deterministic networking and real-time data exchange. Critics point to complexity and fragmentation among implementations; ongoing work focuses on improving interoperability and ecosystem governance.

Related topics include Real-time Transport Protocol, Data Distribution Service, MQTT, and OPC UA.