Definition: fat protocol

A network protocol that uses commands and identifiers that are typically text based and rather wordy and consume more bandwidth than a "thin" protocol. For example, SOAP, which is used to invoke processing on a remote server, is considered fat compared to CORBA or DCOM. A "thin" protocol uses fixed, binary fields that are smaller than free-form, text-based tags.

The terms "fat" and "thin" may also be used to refer to the same text-based protocol, but having to do with the arbitrary structure of the tags, in which one design uses more tags than the other.