Overlay Network Topologies for Gossip-Based Multicast

Gossip-based multicast protocols have received increasing attention, because they are easy to deploy, scalable, and robust. In this paper, we study the relations of the reliability of gossip and the overlay network topology on which gossip works. We suggest the use of several graph structures and show this approach can achieve high reliability and load balancing. We also propose a membership protocol that approximates a given graph topology in distributed environments where nodes frequently join and leave multicast groups. Through experimental results, we show this protocol achieves satisfiable reliability and load balancing.