In some cases, an application program knows that an association should be ended. The ACF.Release and ACF.Abort strings indicate that an association should be ended gracefully (ACF.Release) or abruptly (ACF.Abort). The ACF.Release string ensures that all pending messages have cleared before the association is ended.

If the association is ended successfully, the MIB.ServiceAccept string is sent. If the association is not ended successfully, the MIB.ServiceError string is sent. For description of these strings, see Requests and responses with the MIB prefix.