INTEGRATING POINT-TO-POINT AND MULTICAST TRANSPORT
Carsten Borma, Universitiit Bremen · 1994
Many designs for multicast transport protocols presume a homogeneous view of the network environment they are operating in, the latter hiding the various networks' features from the transport layer. However, knowing its underlying net- work characteristics enables a multicast transport protocol to adjust itself to particular networks. This can be important for providing a scalable, reliable multicast transport. A multicast group often is faced with different topologies (point-to-point links vs. broadcast capable networks) and different network service qualities (e.g. packet loss probability, throughput, and delay): For some parts of the group, network connectivity allows multicasting and the usage of negative acknowledgment schemes, for others, point-to-point connections with positive ACKs are required. Trying to unite both service types within a single type of transport is inefficient and often not possible at all. We present a hybrid approach to a multicast transport that extends a standardized multicast service based on point-to- point connections to be efficiently applicable in multicast capa- ble networks as well.