Combinatory multicast for differentiated data transmission in distributed virtual environments

Abstract

The shortage of multicast addresses is a factor that limits their use in Intemet-based applications. Since multicast plays a very important role in supporting resource heterogeneity among users of applications with a high demand of computational resources, such as Distributed Virtual Environments, the sparing use of these addresses is of great importance. This paper suggests a scheme for the combination of multicast groups for differentiated data transmission, based on layered multicast, with which the number of different levels of service that can be provided to users of a shared virtual environment with a fixed number of groups is multiplied. For applications where the levels of service correspond to different transmission rates, the scheme also significantly reduces bandwidth utilization. We present a basic method for its implementation and describe preliminary tests to prove its functionality.