Solutions for reliable multicasting

Abstract

Many of the applications that will be hosted on the Marine Corps' Tactical Data Network (TDN) require data to be delivered reliably from one sender to many receivers. Reliable multicast protocols are better suited for this one-to-many communication than conventional transport layer unicast protocols. These multicast protocols will have to contend with the limited bandwidth and high bit error rates of wide area links in the tactical internet. They must also adapt to the intemet's changing topology, and be robust enough to survive its inevitable disruptions. This thesis evaluates several reliable transport layer multicast protocols for their ability to deliver data reliably over a tactical intemet. Because multicast routing protocols build delivery trees for these protocols, they are also evaluated. The bandwidth saved by multicast protocols make them particularly valuable in the tactical internet. However, at both the network and transport layers, no single protocol satisfies all the requirements of the internet. Which protocols are selected for TDN depends on how the decision maker weights the requirements of the tactical internet. The types of tactical data systems will also influence the choice of a multicast routing protocol. Similarly, the reliable multicast protocols which are selected must meet the demands of the application for which they were designed while still operating within the constraints imposed by the tactical internet