Group Communication and Multicast
Stub. Atomic and IP multicast, application-layer multicast, ordered multicast (total order and causal order), reliable (and scalable reliable) multicast, open groups and view-synchronous group communication, and the Transis system as a worked example.
Sending one message to many recipients raises questions unicast doesn’t: does everyone receive it (reliability), does everyone receive messages in the same order (total order) or in an order consistent with causality (causal order), and what happens to group membership when it changes mid-communication (view synchrony)? Covers the multicast primitives from IP multicast up through application-layer overlays, the ordering guarantees and how to implement them, reliability at scale, and Transis as a concrete system realizing view-synchronous open-group communication — the substrate that replicated state machines are built on.
Outline (TODO — flesh out each)
- Atomic multicast
- IP multicast; application layer multicast
- Ordered multicasts — implementing total order and causal order
- Reliable ordered multicast — requirements; scalable reliable multicast
- Open groups; view-synchronous group communication
- An overview of Transis