Real-Time Multicast and Memory Replication Channels with Delay Bounded Error Detection and Retry Capabilities

In order to accommodate different requirements of reliable multicast applications, the real-time reliable multicasting support framework must possess generic yet rich features for detecting and reporting message losses with tight latency bounds. One highly promising concrete formulation of a multicast framework is the Real-time Multicast & Memory Replication Channel (RMMC) scheme. In this paper, we present the Delay-Bounded Reliable RMMC (DBR-RMMC) scheme, which extends the RMMC scheme in order to yield tight bounds on the latencies in detecting and reporting message losses over RMMCs and to enable application layer to initiate timely recovery actions. The DBR-RMMC scheme offers an API that allows application developers to freely explore the various design dimensions of reliable multicast applications while assuring timeliness. We also discuss a middleware subsystem devised to support DBRRMMC, followed by a summary of several analytical results on the bounds for latencies in reacting to the occurrence of a message loss. Experiments involving a real-time video streaming application have been conducted and encouraging results are presented.