Wireless Application Protocal

WAP : For Wireless Devices ;;;; Like HTTP : For Web Browsers
Is a protocol, a data transport mechanism
For Delivering Internet data over Wireless Networks and enables the creation of Web Applications for mobile devices
WAP for handheld devices such as mobile phones, pagers, PDAs and other wireless terminals
WAP is a protocol designed for micro browsers
Uses the mark up language WML
WAP was built on standards such as IP, URLs and XML
WML is defined as an XML 1.0 Application
WAP

Designed for Wireless Computing :
Devices with limited Processing Power and Memory
Limited Battery life and Power
Small Displays
Limited Data Input and User interaction capabilities
Limited Bandwidth and Connection Speeds
Frequent unstable connections
WAP (Contd...)

WAP Forum was formed in 1997 by Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Phone.com (Currently > 350 members)
For defining the standards for providing Internet Content and Services to wireless devices
WAP   Forum
Clients : Device the end user is using
Gateways : Link between Wireless domain and Internet
Servers : Hosts the WAP Content and Applications
Applications : Components the end users see
WAP   Components

WAP Programming Model

CGI,
Scripts,
Etc.

Content
Web Server

Client
WAE
User
Agent
Request
(URL)
Response
(Content)

Gateway
Encoders
And
Decoders

Encoded
Request
Encoded
Response

WAP is not a Single Protocol; It is a collection of protocols and Standards that make up a complete lightweight protocol stack along with special markup and Scripting Languages, which together define a complete solution.
WAP   Protocol Stack
WAE : Wireless Application Environment
WSP: Wireless Session Protocol
WTP : Wireless Transaction Protocol
WTLS : Wireless Transport layer Security
WDP : Wireless Datagram Protocol
WAP   Protocol Stack (Contd…)

Other Services
And Applications

Transport Layer   (WDP)
Security Layer (WTLS)
Transaction Layer (WTP)
Session Layer (WSP)...