Rendezvous and UPnP

1. Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses 2. Multicast DNS 3. DNS-Based Service Discovery

These allow for automatic network device and service discovery. In other words, you hook up your new printer to your network and all the other computers instantly know it’s there.

Apparently Microsoft started a similar program called Universal Plug ‘n’ Play or UPnP. The goal is the same as Rendezvous (automatic network configuration of devices) but instead of using small DNS packets, UPnP uses HTTP and SOAP. It also provides a much more strict standard for the devices to implement.

This all reminds me of Sun’s poor ol’ Jini technology which never really took off. And until today I hadn’t heard about UPnP while I had heard of Rendezvous, so I’m interested in seeing which set of standards will win out in the end. O’Reilly did an article back in late 2002 on these two technologies and apparently as of today, neither has emerged the victor. If anyone has any other insights into these two technologies and which is better or worse, I’d be really interested in hearing them.