Bimodal multicast
- 1 May 1999
- journal article
- Published by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in ACM Transactions on Computer Systems
- Vol. 17 (2), 41-88
- https://doi.org/10.1145/312203.312207
Abstract
There are many methods for making a multicast protocol “reliable.” At one end of the spectrum, a reliable multicast protocol might offer tomicity guarantees, such as all-or-nothing delivery, delivery ordering, and perhaps additional properties such as virtually synchronous addressing. At the other are protocols that use local repair to overcome transient packet loss in the network, offering “best effort” reliability. Yet none of this prior work has treated stability of multicast delivery as a basic reliability property, such as might be needed in an internet radio, television, or conferencing application. This article looks at reliability with a new goal: development of a multicast protocol which is reliable in a sense that can be rigorously quantified and includes throughput stability guarantees. We characterize this new protocol as a “bimodal multicast” in reference to its reliability model, which corresponds to a family of bimodal probability distributions. Here, we introduce the protocol, provide a theoretical analysis of its behavior, review experimental results, and discuss some candidate applications. These confirm that bimodal multicast is reliable, scalable, and that the protocol provides remarkably stable delivery throughput.Keywords
This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
- Reliable multicast transport protocol (RMTP)IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 1997
- Causal delivery of messages with real-time data in unreliable networksReal-Time Systems, 1996
- HorusCommunications of the ACM, 1996
- A reliable multicast framework for light-weight sessions and application level framingACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, 1995
- Experience with causally and totally ordered communication supportACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, 1994
- Why bother with CATOCS?ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, 1994
- A response to Cheriton and Skeen's criticism of causal and totally ordered communicationACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, 1994
- Understanding the limitations of causally and totally ordered communicationACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, 1993
- Providing high availability using lazy replicationACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 1992
- Randomized broadcast in networksRandom Structures & Algorithms, 1990