RFC 5058 · EXPERIMENTAL · 2007

Explicit Multicast Concepts and Options

Overview

RFC 5058, “Explicit Multicast Concepts and Options”, is an Experimental document published in November 2007 by R. Boivie, N. Feldman, Y. Imai, W. Livens, D. Ooms. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

While traditional IP multicast schemes (RFC 1112) are scalable for very large multicast groups, they have scalability issues with a very large number of distinct multicast groups. This document describes Xcast (Explicit Multi-unicast), a new multicast scheme with complementary scaling properties: Xcast supports a very large number of small multicast sessions. Xcast achieves this by explicitly encoding the list of destinations in the data packets, instead of using a multicast group address.

This document discusses Xcast concepts and options in several areas; it does not provide a complete technical specification. This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Experimental” means

Describes a specification that is part of a research or development effort, published so the community can gain experience with it.

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The canonical text of RFC 5058 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.

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