Subject: Re: comments on simple multicast

From: Mikhail Smirnov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 16:19:47 +0100

On Tue Dec 22 15:57:26 1998 Ken Carlberg wrote

> in very general terms, MASC (and the other complimentary protocols) involves
> the allocation/distribution of multicast addresses.  during this process,
> there is a delay and a best-guess engineering incured in this schema. 
> granted, the delay is small, and the engineering will probably be adequate
> for today's commonly used mcast applications.  but there are other 
> applications that may need to (and indeed do) bypass this process. 

this is very much true, I believe. There was a discussion on a malloc list
before the malloc bof (Chicago): based on analytical modelling it's 
possible to show that (additionally to the malloc architecture) there 
should be a  mediation mechanism assuring that some multicast addresses are 
co-operatively hoarded (a word coined by Graham Phillips, ISI) across
domains by these new family of applications (to guarantee more than 
best-effort m'cast addresses availability).
Some very initial results are in draft-phillips-malloc-util-00.txt.

Regards & Merry Christmas

Michael

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From: Mikhail Smirnov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 16:54:49 +0100

Mark,

> Yes, one of the intentions behind the architecture is that those rare
> applications with special needs can bypass
> the-protocol-formerly-known-as-MDHCP and actually be be MAAS's and
> speak AAP directly.  Then, within *very* broad bounds set my MASC,
> they can do their own address management.  

agree with that: the malloc architecture has broad bounds enough,
but also agree that

> ....  Speaking AAP is a bit
> harder than speaking MDHCP, so you wouldn't want normal apps to have
> to do so, but if you need that degree of control, that's where you fit
> in the architecture.

and I'd add (now from apps viewpoint) that "normal apps" should delegate
this direct AAP talk to a [Internet-based] middleware.

regards

Michael

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From: Mark Handley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 11:02:53 -0500

>this direct AAP talk to a [Internet-based] middleware.

Yes, that's the purpose of the MALLOC abstract API and MDHCP.

Mark