Performance analysis of a file delivery system based on the FLUTE protocol

摘要

This paper presents the results of performance tests carried out for a file delivery system based on the file delivery over unidirectional transport (FLUTE) protocol. FLUTE is a file transport protocol used to deliver files over IP networks, including the Internet and unidirectional systems, from a sender to one or more receivers. FLUTE uses UDP, an unreliable transport protocol, and so reliable delivery must be guaranteed by other means. This paper shows how FLUTE manages to recover from packet losses using forward path redundancy (forward error correction (FEC) and repeat transmissions in a data carousel), and a simple HTTP-based point-to-point file repair scheme which is specified in 3GPP and DVB standards. The results presented in this paper show that careful optimization of FEC overhead, and the number of repeat transmissions, gives the best system performance in most cases. Based on the simplified error reception and distribution model depicted in this study, it is illustrated that the simple client-server point-to-point file repair is optimal only for small groups. Several options to improve the configuration of FLUTE senders are provided, to deliver reception guarantees with optimal data expense from the system point of view.