J.C. Sanchez-Aarnoutse, P. Manzanares-Lopez, J. Malgosa-Sanahuja, and J. Garcia-Haro (Spain)
Multicast, transport protocol, wireless, synchronicity, replication.
In this paper, we analyze a multicast protocol called MUST-VW (MUlticast Synchronous Transfer Variable Window), which offers multicast file transfer service to the application layer, in an asymmetric intra-campus environment (several interconnected wired and wireless LAN networks). Synchronicity is one of its more remarkable attributes since MUST-VW guarantees that all clients are receiving the information at the same time. For efficient bandwidth utilization, MUST-VW transmits IP packets by using multicast addressing. Also, it achieves a notable acknowledgement packet reduction thanks to the use of a transmission mechanism similar to the well known sliding-window. Additionally, the use of NACK packets allows the protocol to react when sporadic losses appear (a usual situation in a radio transmission channel). Flow control and error recovery algorithms are also developed to satisfy features such as reliability, high throughput and low delay. To evaluate the protocol, we first implemented an application based on it that we extensively tested in an intra-campus environment, composed by a wired fast Ethernet and a wireless 802.11b Ethernet connected through an Access Point router. We also demonstrate mathematically the main protocol parameters.
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