An efficient reliable broadcast protocol

Abstract
Many distributed and parallel applications can make good use of broadcast communication. In this paper we present a (software) protocol that simulates reliable broadcast, even on an unreliable network. Using this protocol, application programs need not worry about lost messages. Recovery of communication failures is handled automatically and transparently by the protocol. In normal operation, our protocol is more efficient than previously published reliable broadcast protocols. An initial implementation of the protocol on 10 MC68020 CPUs connected by a 10 Mbit/sec Ethernet performs a reliable broadcast in 1.5 msec.