File formats:

Status:

EXPERIMENTAL

Authors:

R. Boivie
N. Feldman
Y. Imai
W. Livens
D. Ooms

Stream:

INDEPENDENT

Cite this RFC: TXT  |  XML  |   BibTeX

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC5058

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Abstract

While traditional IP multicast schemes (RFC 1112) are scalable for very large multicast groups, they have scalability issues with a very large number of distinct multicast groups. This document describes Xcast (Explicit Multi-unicast), a new multicast scheme with complementary scaling properties: Xcast supports a very large number of small multicast sessions. Xcast achieves this by explicitly encoding the list of destinations in the data packets, instead of using a multicast group address.

This document discusses Xcast concepts and options in several areas; it does not provide a complete technical specification. This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

For the definition of Status, see RFC 2026.

For the definition of Stream, see RFC 8729.