This document specifies the Microsoft Tabular Data Stream (TDS), a Microsoft-proprietary protocol. The TDS Protocol is an application layer request/response protocol that facilitates interaction with a database server and provides for:

• Authentication and channel encryption negotiation.
• Specification of requests in SQL (including Bulk Insert).
• Invocation of a stored procedure or user-defined function, also known as a remote procedure call (RPC).
• Returning of data.
• Transaction manager requests.