A system and method for establishing multiple connections using a private
data field of a communication management protocol is provided. With the
present invention, a Service ID identifies a specific consumer and the
private data field contains a list of connection attributes for each
connection that is to be established. An active side requests a
connection and the passive side replies to the connection request. The
active side sends the passive side a connection establishment request.
This connection establishment request includes a Service ID which
identifies a passive side process associated with a service. This
connection establishment request also includes communication attributes
of one or more connected services and datagram services associated with
the Service ID. The passive passes the connection request to a process
associated with the service. If the passive side process does not wish to
carry out the service, a negative reply message is returned to the active
side. If the passive side process does wish to carry out the service, a
positive reply is returned to the active side and the reply includes the
communication attributes for the connection and unreliable services
associated with the Service ID used in the connection establishment
request.