S. Chuang, Jon Crowcroft, S. Hailes, M. Handley, N. Ismail, D. Lewis,
and Ian Wakeman, <b>"Multimedia application requirements for multicast
communications services,"</b> in Proceedings of the International
Networking Conference (INET), (San Francisco, California), pp. BFB-1 -
BFB-9, Internet Society, Aug. 1993.
<p>
<b>Abstract:</b> Multimedia conferencing can be seen as a new way of
distributing communication between several applications (rather than a
single monolithic application) that often involves more than two
end-systems. This can take advantage of multidestination
communications services provided by multicast system based on host
groups and the enhancement of routers to form special purpose
forwarding paths to these groups. This is mainly so that the number of
copies of packets sent over mesh topology wide area networks (X.25,
IP, or CLNP, as well as SMDS and ATM based WANs) to group destinations
may be reduced significantly over a simple replication at source, and
so that the service interface is similar to that provided by multicast
on networks with a physical broadcast technology (e.g., satellite and
LANs). In this paper, we examine the snares and delusions that must be
avoided when four different kinds of multicast applications uses a
multicast network service, namely: shared window, packet digital
audio, packet digital video and shared applications. This is based on
the experience of a real (non-toy) system operating over international
ISDN links in Europe, and the participation in the (configuration and
use of) IETF Internet audio and video casts, to over 200 sites
worldwide.
<p>
<b>Keywords:</b> Internet; MBONE; multicast; distributed systems;
multimedia; conferencing; conference control