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Reliable multicast protocols scale only as well as their ability to localize traffic. This is true for repair requests, repairs, and the session traffic that enables receivers to suppress extraneous requests and repairs. We propose a new reliable multicast traffic localization technique called Scoped Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest with Forward Error Correction (SHARQFEC). SHARQFEC operates in an end-to-end fashion and localizes traffic using a hierarchy of administratively scoped regions. Session traffic is further reduced through the use of a novel method for indirectly determining the distances between session members. For large sessions, this mechanism reduces the amount of session traffic by several orders of magnitude over non-scoped protocols such as Scalable Reliable Multicast (SRM). Forward Error Correction is selectively added to regions which are experiencing greater loss, thereby reducing the volume of repair traffic and recovery times. Receivers request additional repairs as necessary. Simulations show that SHARQFEC out performs both SRM and non-scoped hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest / Forward Error Correction protocols. Assuming the widespread deployment of administrative scoping, SHARQFEC could conceivably provide scalable reliable delivery to tens of millions of receivers without huge increases in network bandwidth.


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The referenced paper is in Computer Communication Review, a publication of ACM SIGCOMM, volume 28, number 4, October 1998. ISSN # 0146-4833.

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