Lightweight, efficient, robust epidemic dissemination

Today’s intensive demand for data such as live broadcast or news feeds requires efficient and robust dissemination systems. Traditionally, designs focus on extremes of the efficiency/robustness spectrum by either using structures, such as trees for efficiency or by using loosely-coupled epidemic protocols for robustness.We present Brisa, a hybrid approach combining the robustness of epidemics with the efficiency of structured approaches. Brisa implicitly emerges embedded dissemination structures from an underlying epidemic substrate. The structures’ links are chosen with local knowledge only, but still ensuring connectivity. Failures can be promptly compensated and repaired thanks to the epidemic substrate, and their impact on dissemination delays masked by the use of multiple independent structures.Besides presenting the protocol design, we conduct an extensive evaluation in real environments, analyzing the effectiveness of the structure creation mechanism and its robustness under dynamic conditions. Results confirm Brisa as an efficient and robust approach to data dissemination in large dynamic environments.

► Brisa, a novel approach to data dissemination for large-scale distributed systems.
► Combines epidemic dissemination robustness with cost-effectiveness of structured dissemination.
► The epidemic-based substrate allows fast construction and recovery of the dissemination structures.
► Support for multiple concurrent disseminations and re-use of structures.
► Experimental evaluation on a large cluster and world-scale testbed.