TRAM: A tree-based reliable multicast protocol

Abstract

This paper describes TRAM, a scalable reliable multicast transport protocol. TRAM is designed to support bulk data transfer with a single sender and multiple receivers. It uses dynamic trees to implement local error recovery and to scale to a large number of receivers without seriously impacting the sender. It also includes flow control, congestion control, and other adaptive techniques necessary to operate efficiently and fairly with other protocols across the wide variety of link and client characteristics that make up the Internet as well as intranets. TRAM has been successfully used to implement several bulk data delivery applications. TRAM has been tested and simulated in a number of network environments.