Design of a reliable multicast protocol

A multicast protocol that is independent of the subnetwork and can operate on the top of a basic datagram network is described. The protocol provides reliable communication among the members of a group nd guarantees that each message sent to a group G is delivered to all active, i.e. both correct and faulty, processes in G or to none of them, and that all the members of G consistently decide on the same progressive order to process messages. The focus is mainly on the design of the protocol. The protocol architecture to which it belongs is described, and some simulation results are given. An outline of the protocol algorithm, which uses a centralized approach based on the rotating coordinator paradigm, allows processes to asynchronously decide on a given value, and recovers processes from failures through history buffers, is also given