A Cross-Layer Architecture and Protocols for Reliable File-Stream Distribution

The growing deployment of OpenFlow/SDN networks makes it increasingly possible to leverage network multicast services. This work proposes a novel cross-layer Multicast-Push Unicast-Pull (MPUP) architecture that includes functionality in the application, transport and link layers to offer users a reliable file-stream distribution service to multiple subscribers. In addition, for the transport layer, a reliable multicast protocol named File Multicast Transport Protocol (FMTP) was designed and implemented.

A prototype implementation of the MPUP architecture, which includes FMTP, was realized in a new version of Local Data Manager (LDM), LDM7, a software program that has been in use since 1994 for real-time meteorology data distribution. LDM6, the currently deployed version, uses application-layer multicast (ALM).

Experiments were run on the GENI infrastructure to compare LDM7 and LDM6. The two main findings are (i) LDM7 can be run at a higher sending rate than LDM6 allowing for improved performance (lower file-delivery latency), and (ii) to achieve the same performance, LDM7 uses significantly lower bandwidth and compute capacity. A three-fold improvement in performance improvement was possible with LDM7, and a bandwidth reduction from 350 Mbps to 21.4 Mbps was observed with 24 receivers.