A loss recovery approach for reliable application layer multicast

In the application layer multicast (ALM), providing reliable (i.e., lossless) data delivery service is complex. This paper proposes a hierarchical loss recovery solution, called HR, for reliable application layer multicast. HR can be used as an extension to existing tree-based ALM protocols, to provide lossless ALM service. In the HR solution, the group members at the top of the ALM tree are in a recovery plane (i.e., Plane 1), and the members at the bottom of the ALM tree are in another recovery plane (i.e., Plane 2). HR employs a robust and quick approach to recover the losses at the group members in Plane 1, which can avoid the potential losses at the downstream nodes and provide many relatively reliable recovery sources. HR uses a loss recovery approach, which can effectively reduce the link load, to recover the loss found by the group member in Plane 2. In HR, the recovery packet is retransmitted by an area-constrained multicast means, which can recover the loss at one or multiple group members with little recovery diffusion. Through a cooperative and active way, HR can effectively address the error correlation problem of ALM.

► We propose a hierarchical approach to effectively improve the performance of the loss recovery in application layer multicast (ALM). ► We propose an area-constrained multicast means to recover the loss at multiple group members with little recovery diffusion. ► The error correlation problem in reliable ALM is well addressed without breaking the clustering rule. ► Our proposed loss recovery approach can easily be used as an extension to a class of existing ALM protocols.