Abstract

Gossip-based multicast can be an effective tool for providing highly reliable and scalable message dissemination. Previous work has shown it to be useful in a variety of group communication settings when processes all belong to a single process group. In this paper, we consider the problem of gossiping within overlapping process subgroups. If each subgroup independently runs the standard gossip protocol, then the total gossip overhead could be high for a process that is a member of many subgroups. We present anovel gossip protocol that allows individual subgroup members to trade-off update quality for gossip overhead, enabling processes to belong to several subgroups while maintaining a low total gossip overhead. Our results include a mathematical model for message dissemination under this modified gossip protocol, and an algorithm that computes gossip parameters such that all processes within a subgroup achieve their desired update quality. Preliminary results are promising.

Citations