Abbreviated as TDS, Tabular Data Stream is an
application level protocol that describes the transmission of data between two
computers. TDS defines the types of messages that can be sent as well as the
order in which the messages can be sent in. TDS relies on a
connection-oriented
transport service. Session, presentation and application service elements are
provided by TDS. The TDS protocol was designed and developed by Sybase Inc. for
their Sybase SQL Server relational database engine in 1984.
TDS 5.0 Functional Specification (PDF) TDS does not require any specific transport provider. It can be implemented over multiple transport protocols if they provide connection oriented service.
