12/04/00 Anton Kozlov
   "A Case For End System Multicast", 
   Yang-hua Chu, Sanjay G. Rao and Hui Zhang, 
   Proceedings of ACM Sigmetrics , Santa Clara,CA, June 2000, pp 1-12. 

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, 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, several issues need to be 
resolved before End System Multicast becomes a practical alternative to IP 
Multicast. A 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-to-end delay than IP Multicast. We have 
studied this question in the context of a protocol we have developed called 
Narada . In Narada, end systems self-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 have 
evaluated Narada using 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.