A Short Overview of Service Discovery Protocols for MANETS

MANETs (Mobile Ad Hoc Networks) are infrastructure-less, temporary wireless networks, consisting of several stations. No specific topology is defined in MANETs. MANETs have various applications in computer networks, such as providing communication in a domicile lacking network groundwork and proper infrastructure. In a MANET, a data packet may crisscross numerous hops until reaching its target location, making it exposed to various network attacks. The packets in a MANET are exposed to various packet dropping attacks. Mobility is there but security is the main issue still. The technology used for finding, advertising services to other nodes in the network is Service Discovery. Different Protocols are available for Service Discovery. Our focus in this paper will be on Service Discovery, available Service Discovery Architecture & their modes of operation, some proposed protocols. We will discuss Mobile Service Discovery Protocol (MSDP), which have steady performance & reduced massage overhead. Currently there is a diversity of service discovery protocols, most important Jini, SLP, Salutation, MSDP, Chord and UPnP. Bluetooth has also a slightly modest service discovery protocol. We have compared these tactics and listed their benefits and weaknesses