A Delay Comparison of Reliable Multicast Protocols: Analysis and Simulation Results

We compare packet delivery delays from a probabilistic analysis of a flat and two tree-based reliable multicast protocols with simulation results of SRM, RMTP and TMTP variations. Analytical and simulation results show identical behavior with varying packet loss probabilities, number of receivers, and transmission rates. Even the absolute delays of the analytical and simulation results are almost identical which shows that carefully mathematical modelling can provide results of the same quality as simulation does. A second focus of our work is to identify an optimal branching factor of the control tree established by tree-based reliable multicast protocols. Our analytical and simulation results show that a branching factor which is too small can significantly increase delay.