A Survey of Ring-Building Network Protocols Suitable for Command and Control Group Communications

摘要

Multicasting is the enabling technology for group communication. However, network-layer multicasting (e.g., IP multicast) has not been widely adopted more than 10 years of its invention due to the concerns related to deployment, scalability and network management. Application-layer multicast (ALM) has been proposed as an alternative for IP multicast. In ALM, group communications take place on an overlay network in which each edge corresponds to a direct unicast path between two group members. ALM protocols differ in, among other aspects, the topology of the underlying overlay network (e.g., tree, mesh or ring). Ring-based ALM protocols have the advantages of providing a constant node degree, and enabling the implementation of reliable and totally-ordered message delivery through the use of a ring with a token that contains ordering and flow control information. In addition, a ring overlay network topology is inherently reliable to single node failures. In this paper, we provide a survey and a taxonomy of several ring-building group communication protocols. Investigating the major characteristics of ring-building network protocols is an important step towards understanding which of them are suitable for command and control group communications.