This article presents a new reliable multicast scheme for ``one-to-many'' distributions such as a streaming of digital media in networks. It is based on "Peer-to-Group (P2G) Dissemination," in
which a server simply transmits a single set of data packets toward a group of receiving hosts; each host, on an equal basis in a local network, then makes copies of data packets it received and shares the
data with every other receiving host in order to compensate and allow for a full assembly of the original data. By doing so, the system can avoid server overload and network congestion, both of which are
serious issues in most ont-to-many distributions. The system is reliable and remains stable even when clients frequently join and leave the service because the server optimizes the flow of packets and
leaves the clients with no fixed role in copying packets. P2G Dissemination requires no infrastructure support, unlike IP Multicast, and no secondary servers, unlike the Edge Architecture, but it only
requires application-level server and client hosts, where the clients assist in the distribution of packets. It is, especially, suitable for a network infrastructure with large-scale switching hubs. The article
also shows some implementation examples and experimental results performed on an actual network in commercial environments.
By: Shuichi Shimizu, Taiga Nakamura
Published in: IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE in 2003
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