An efficient QoS routing algorithm for quorumcast communication

This paper extends the concept of multicast to quorumcast, a generalized form of multicast communication. The need of quorumcast communication arises in a number of distributed applications. Little work has been done on routing quorumcast messages. The objective of previous research was to construct a minimum cost tree spanning the source and the quorumcast group members. We further consider the path quality of a constructed spanning tree in terms of delay constraints required by applications that use the tree. As the delay-constrained quorumcast routing problem is NP-complete, we propose an efficient heuristic QoS routing algorithm. We also consider how a loop is detected and removed in the course of tree construction and how to deal with members joining/leaving the quorumcast pool. Our simulation study shows that the proposed algorithm performs well and constructs a quorumcast tree whose cost is close to that of the "optimal" routing tree.