RFC 2887 (rfc2887) - Page 2 of 22
The Reliable Multicast Design Space for Bulk Data Transfer
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 2887 Multicast Design Space for Bulk Data Transfer August 2000
constraints necessary for the forms of congestion control we
currently understand. The purpose of this review is to gather
together an overview of the field and to make explicit the
constraints imposed by particular mechanisms. The aim is to provide
guidance to the standardization process for protocols and protocol
building blocks. In doing this, we cluster potential solutions into
a number of loose categories - real protocols may be composed of
mechanisms from more than one of these clusters.
The main constraint on solutions is imposed by the need to scale to
large receiver sets. For small receiver sets the design space is
much less restricted.
2. Application Constraints
Application requirements for reliable multicast (RM) are as broad and
varied as the applications themselves. However, there are a set of
requirements that significantly affect the design of an RM protocol.
A brief list includes:
o Does the application need to know that everyone received the data?
o Does the application need to constrain differences between
receivers?
o Does the application need to scale to large numbers of receivers?
o Does the application need to be totally reliable?
o Does the application need ordered data?
o Does the application need to provide low-delay delivery?
o Does the application need to provide time-bounded delivery?
o Does the application need many interacting senders?
o Is the application data flow intermittent?
o Does the application need to work in the public Internet?
o Does the application need to work without a return path (e.g.
satellite)?
o Does the application need to provide secure delivery?
Handley, et al. Informational