Optimal Multicast with Packetization and Network Interface Support

Abstract

: Most multicast algorithms proposed in the literature assume an arbitrarily long message being communicated as a single packet. Modern networks typically limit the size of the largest packet, and long messages are packetized and transmitted. Such networks also provide network interface support for nodes, which typically includes a coprocessor and memory, to implement the lower layers of the communication protocol. Such network interfaces can be programmed to support efficient multicasting to eliminate software overhead for higher layers during absorb and retransmit. In this paper, we present an optimal multicast algorithm for systems with such smart network interface support for packetization. Two implementations of smart network interface, the First-Child-First-Served (FCFS) and the First-Packet-First-Served (FPFS), are studied and compared. It is shown that the FPFS network interface support is more practical and efficient. Next, the multicast latency is modeled for the FPFS impleme..