Fcast Multicast File Distribution: "Tune in, Download, and Drop Out".
Jim Gemmell, Eve M. Schooler, Jim Gray · 1999
: Reliable data multicast is difficult to scale. Fcast, "file multicasting", combines multicast with Forward Error Correction (FEC) to solve this problem. Like classic multicast, Fcast scales to large audiences, and like other FEC schemes, it uses bandwidth very efficiently. Some of the benefits of this combination were known previously, but Fcast contributes new caching methods that improve disk throughput and new optimizations for small file transfers. Keywords: Reliable multicast, forward error correction, file transfer, caching, scalability. 1 Introduction Frenzied downloading that raises Internet traffic by an order of magnitude has been dubbed the Midnight Madness problem because the mad dash for files often takes place late at night or in the early morning when files are first made available. Spikes in activity have been due to a range of phenomena such as popular product releases, important software updates, security bug fixes, the NASA Pathfinder vehicle landing on Mars, th...