Editing Intelligent Network (section)

==Protocols==
The core elements described above use standard protocols to communicate with each other. The use of standard protocols allows different manufacturers to concentrate on different parts of the architecture and be confident that they will all work together in any combination.

The interfaces between the SSP and the SCP are [[Signalling System No. 7|SS7]] based and have similarities with [[TCP/IP]] protocols.  The SS7 protocols implement much of the [[OSI seven-layer model]].  This means that the IN standards only had to define the [[application layer]], which is called the Intelligent Networks Application Part or [[INAP]].  The INAP messages are encoded using [[ASN.1]].

The interface between the SCP and the SDP is defined in the standards to be an [[X.500]] Directory Access Protocol or DAP. A more lightweight interface called [[LDAP]] has emerged from the [[IETF]] which is considerably simpler to implement, so many SCPs have implemented that instead.