Next Steps in Signaling

Next Steps in Signaling (NSIS) was an Internet Engineering Task Force working group focusing on the design of a next generation signaling protocol framework and protocol specifications.{{Cite journal |author=X. Fu |author2=Henning Schulzrinne |author3=A. Bader |author4=D. Hogrefe |author5=C. Kappler |author6=G. Karagiannis |author7=H. Tschofenig |author8=S. Van den Bosch |title= NSIS: a new extensible IP signaling protocol suite |journal= IEEE Communications Magazine |volume= 43 |number= 10 |date= October 2005 |pages= 133–141 |doi= 10.1109/MCOM.2005.1522137 |s2cid= 11652819 }}{{cite web |title= Next Steps in Signaling (nsis) |work= Charter page |publisher= IETF |url= http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/nsis/charter/ |access-date= October 12, 2011 |archive-date= April 18, 2011 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110418194425/https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/nsis/charter/ }}

The NSIS working group was chartered in late 2001 to work on a replacement for Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP). Chairs included Jukka Manner and Martin Stiemerling. The overall framework of NSIS was presented in 2005.{{cite journal |title= Next Steps in Signaling (NSIS): Framework

|journal= RFC 4080 |date= June 2005 |author1=R. Hancock |author2=G. Karagiannis |author3=J. Loughney |author4=S. Van den Bosch |publisher= IETF |doi= 10.17487/RFC4080 |url= http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4080 |access-date= October 12, 2011}} In 2006, the group submitted the first protocol specification for approval by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). In October 2010, the actual protocol specifications were finally approved and released within the Request for Comments (RFC) series.

The work concluded in 2011.

The NSIS protocol suite includes three primary protocols:

• The General Internet Signalling Transport protocol (GIST){{cite journal |title= General Internet Signalling Transport |author= Henning Schulzrinne, R. Hancock |date= October 2010 |publisher= IETF |journal= RFC 5971 |doi= 10.17487/RFC5971 |url= http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5971 |access-date= October 12, 2011 }}
• The QoS signaling protocol QoS NSLP {{cite journal|url=http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5974 |title=RFC 5974 |year=2010 |publisher=Tools.ietf.org |doi=10.17487/RFC5974 |access-date=2012-03-18|last1=Manner |first1=J. |last2=Karagiannis |first2=G. |last3=McDonald |first3=A. |doi-access=free }}
• The NAT/Firewall signaling protocol NAT/FW NSLP {{cite journal|url=http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5973 |title=RFC 5973 |publisher=Tools.ietf.org |date=2008-11-10 |doi=10.17487/RFC5973 |access-date=2012-03-18|last1=Stiemerling |first1=M. |last2=Tschofenig |first2=H. |last3=Aoun |first3=C. |last4=Davies |first4=E. |doi-access=free }}

The QoS NSLP seeks to replace the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) for signaling resource reservations to Internet routers.

The NAT/Firewall NSLP provides a means to talk to network middleboxes, such as firewalls NATs, to punch holes and set up IP address mappings.