<P> The Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) is a network protocol based on the Internet Protocol Suite for advertisement and discovery of network services and presence information . It accomplishes this without assistance of server - based configuration mechanisms, such as the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) or the Domain Name System (DNS), and without special static configuration of a network host . SSDP is the basis of the discovery protocol of Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and is intended for use in residential or small office environments . It was formally described in an IETF Internet draft by Microsoft and Hewlett - Packard in 1999 . Although the IETF proposal has since expired (April, 2000), SSDP was incorporated into the UPnP protocol stack, and a description of the final implementation is included in UPnP standards documents . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Th> Internet protocol suite </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Application layer </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> BGP </Li> <Li> DHCP </Li> <Li> DNS </Li> <Li> FTP </Li> <Li> HTTP </Li> <Li> IMAP </Li> <Li> LDAP </Li> <Li> MGCP </Li> <Li> NNTP </Li> <Li> NTP </Li> <Li> POP </Li> <Li> ONC / RPC </Li> <Li> RTP </Li> <Li> RTSP </Li> <Li> RIP </Li> <Li> SIP </Li> <Li> SMTP </Li> <Li> SNMP </Li> <Li> SSH </Li> <Li> Telnet </Li> <Li> TLS / SSL </Li> <Li> XMPP </Li> <Li> more...</Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Transport layer </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> TCP </Li> <Li> UDP </Li> <Li> DCCP </Li> <Li> SCTP </Li> <Li> RSVP </Li> <Li> more...</Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Internet layer </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> IP <Ul> <Li> IPv4 </Li> <Li> IPv6 </Li> </Ul> </Li> <Li> ICMP </Li> <Li> ICMPv6 </Li> <Li> ECN </Li> <Li> IGMP </Li> <Li> IPsec </Li> <Li> more...</Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Link layer </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> ARP </Li> <Li> NDP </Li> <Li> OSPF </Li> <Li> Tunnels <Ul> <Li> L2TP </Li> </Ul> </Li> <Li> PPP </Li> <Li> MAC <Ul> <Li> Ethernet </Li> <Li> DSL </Li> <Li> ISDN </Li> <Li> FDDI </Li> </Ul> </Li> <Li> more...</Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> </Table>

What does the simple service discovery protocol (ssdp) do