Active network based TCP-friendly congestion control for reliable multicast

Multicast is the preferred transport mechanism for simultaneously transferring bulk data to multiple receivers. The differences between unicast and multicast, however, bring great challenges to congestion control for large-scale multicast. In this paper, a novel congestion scheme for reliable multicast, called active network based TCP-friendly congestion control, is proposed through introducing active network technology, Hierarchical congestion detection, report and active multi-rate control. Simulations and results show that the proposed scheme can quickly respond to congestion anywhere in the multicast tree, effectively avoid and release congestion within limited part of network and maximize the utilization of network resource.