Hybrid multicast transfer protocol of distributed virtual environment

Data transmission in a distributed virtual environment (DVE) is required to be multi-source feasible, real-time, and highly safe. Based on the analysis of IP multicast and application layer multicast, we propose a hybrid application layer protocol (HALM) for the data transmission in the large scaled internet based DVE. HALM combines the grouping and layering mechanisms to achieve a stable and fast transmission of the simulation data in wide area network (WAN), leading to high efficiency and performance of IP multicast, as well as plausible scalability of application layer multicast. We design a set of unique routing rules based on the determined structure of groups and layers, so as to satisfy the characteristic of multi-data source in DVE and the requirement of real-time transmission. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.