A case for end system multicast (keynote address)

Abstract

The conventional wisdom has been that IP is the natural protocol layer for implementing multicast related functionality. However, ten years after its initial proposal, IP Multicast is still plagued with concerns pertaining to scalability, network management, deployment and support for higher layer functionality such as error, flow and congestion control. In this paper, we explore an alternative architecture for small and sparse groups, where end systems implement all multicast related functionality including membership management and packet replication. We call such a scheme End System Multicast. This shifting of multicast support from routers to end systems has the potential to address most problems associated with IP Multicast. However, the key concern is the performance penalty associated with such a model. In particular, End System Multicast introduces duplicate packets on physical links and incurs larger end-toend delay than IP Multicast. In this paper, we study this question in the context of the Narada protocol. In Narada, end systems serf-organize into an overlay structure using a fully distributed protocol. In addition, Narada attempts to optimize the efficiency of the overlay based on end-to-end measurements. We present details of Narada and evaluate it using both simulation and Internet experiments. Preliminary results are encouraging. In most simulations and Internet experiments, the delay and bandwidth penalty are low. We believe the potential benefits of repartitioning multicast functionality between end systems and routers significantly outweigh the performance penalty incurred.

Optimizing P2P streaming throughput under peer churning

“…Earliest works include Narada [7], Overcast [8], etc., which propose heuristic solutions to construct an overlay multicast tree serving all peers. Following works try to improve throughput, delay, or scalability of overlay multicast, such as ZigZag [9], NICE [10], and CollectCast [11].…”

“…Existing works have studied different overlay topologies such as single tree-based [7,8,10,15], multi-tree-based [1] and mesh-based [12,14] topologies and explored different peer selection strategies such as random peer selection [13], proximity-aware peer selection [16], etc. For example, in TAG (Topology-Aware Grouping) [17], the information about overlapping routes to the sender among group members is used to guide the construction of overlay tree.…”

Sequence of linear programming for transmission of fine-scalable coded content in bandwidth-limited environments

“…While such tree-based distribution structure is intuitive, it is also susceptible to unbalanced load. Solutions addressing this problem include building mesh-based trees in Narada [16], maintaining multiple distribution trees in SplitStream [17], adapting tree structures to reduce streaming latency for active users in ACTIVE [18], and relying on data-driven design in DONet [19].…”

CC: A Single‐Source Multiple‐Destination Caching Mechanism

“…The application layer multicast (ALM) quickly became very popular not only as a research topic but also as a commercial product. But even though ALM can provide users with full multicast functionality, it "introduces duplicate packets on physical links and incurs larger end-to-end delays than IP multicast" as pointed out Chu et al [6]. ALM distributes the burden of data transmission across data receivers; however, it does not address the root cause of the problem, which is the lack of the network layer mechanism for single-source multiple-destination data transfers.…”