Reliable multicast protocol for IP/WDM optical networks using distributed loss recovery

Multicasting plays an important role in internet networks. Supporting wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) multicasting in an IP over WDM network poses interesting problems because some WDM switches may be incapable of switching an incoming signal to more than one output interface. Although some multicast applications, such as audio/video conferencing can tolerate packet error or loss, other applications such as one-to-many file transfer and military applications do not. Hence, an inevitable need for reliable multicasting arises. The reliable multicast protocol ensures the eventual delivery of multicast data to all multicast group members. The reliable multicast is receiver initiated NACK-based and it makes use of feedback suppression in order to avoid NACK and retransmission implosion. The loss recovery burden is distributed over the multicast group members in order to reduce recovery latency and end-to-end delay. The proposed protocol is evaluated in terms of performance metrics for an IP/WDM optical network which will be the candidate for the next generation internet networks.