Initial results of the CD-1 reliable multicast experiment

During the past year, an experiment has been underway to test use of reliable multicast capabilities for transmission of continuous data in the Global Communication Infrastructure. For the experiment a version of the CD-1 protocol was multicast enabled. The experiment has demonstrated the feasibility of transmitting data in a multicast mode over the GCI. In the case of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty the sender could be the station and the receivers the International Data Center (IDC) and one or more National Data Centers (NDC). The potential advantages of multicasting include (a) the timely receipt of the data by the IDC and the host NDC and (b) the simultaneous availability of the raw station data at, at least, two locations. The latter, by introducing redundant data paths, decreases the probability of loss of station data due to a potential failure of a single data receiver. This experiment is only one element of a needed more thorough assessment of the reliability and cost-effectiveness of introducing redundancies in the data transmission paths and the data sinks of the IMS. The next stage of the multicast experiment planned is installation of the multicast-enabled CD-1 software at the GERES IMS station, at the Germanmore » NDC and at the IDC for further experiments with actual IMS station data. This stage of the experiment is waiting on installation of a GCI link to the German NDC. Negotiations regarding price for this installation have been on going between the Global Communication Infrastructure (GCI) contractor and the German NDC with no resolution. Current development of the CD-x protocol is proceeding in two complementary directions. Along with the work on a multicast enabled version of CD-1 there is also work to develop CD-1.1, which will add end-to-end reliability to the CD-1 protocol among other things. A possible future activity would be to combine the reliable multicast and the end-to-end reliability mechanisms into one CD-x protocol version.« less