NDIS and ODI

NDIS and ODI

The Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS), a standard developed by Microsoft and 3Com Corp., describes the interface between the network transport protocol and the Data Link layer network adapter driver. The following list details the goals of NDIS:

To provide a vendor-neutral boundary between the protocol and the network adapter driver so that any NDIS-compliant protocol stack can operate with any NDIS-compliant adapter driver.
To define a method for binding multiple protocols to a single driver so that the adapter can simultaneously support communications under multiple protocols. In addition, the method enables you to bind one protocol to more than one adapter.

The Open Data-Link Interface (ODI), developed by Apple and Novell, serves the same function as NDIS. Originally, ODI was written for NetWare and Macintosh environments. Like NDIS, ODI provides rules that establish a vendor-neutral interface between the protocol stack and the adapter driver. This interface also enables one or more network drivers to support one or more protocol stacks.