SAP semantics
Hello Everyone,
I have a very basic question from reading the latest 802.21 draft
(P802-21-D01-09):
In section 5.6 (page 29, line 34 through 40) I find the following statement:
"The MIH_SAP and associated primitives provide the interface from MIHF to the
upper layers of the mobility-management stack. Upper layers need to register
with MIHF as users to receive MIHF generated events and also for link layer
events that originate at layers below the MIHF but may be passed on to upper
layers through MIHF. Upper layers may directly send commands to MIHF. Similarly
MIHF entity may also send commands to another remote (peer) MIHF entity.
Primitives corresponding to all these services described above are within the
scope of MIH_SAP."
The statement indicates that MIHF provides services to a number of upper layers
(MIH users) through the MIH_SAP. Then the statement also seems to indicate (the
wording is not totally explicit) that MIHF can use MIH_SAP to send commands to a
remote MIHF entity.
My question is about the general SAP semantics:
Can an entity (MIHF in this case) that provides services through a SAP (MIH_SAP)
also obtain services (transport and delivery of commands to a remote MIHF)
through the same SAP?
I always thought that at the two ends of a SAP the roles of service user and
service provider are fixed. Is this not the case? Can the same entity (the MIHF
in our case) be at the same time a service provider and a service user with
respect to the same SAP?
Thanks a lot,
Andrea