Glossary

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Whatevercast

A proposed RINA concept for the unification of unicast, anycast, multicast and broadcast, based on the observation that communication in a network of N nodes is in general n-to-m, unicast is the case where n=m=1, and broadcast the case where m=N-1. The proposed API is allocate(whatevercastname) and the network will resolve the correct set for you based on the whatevercast name and a set of rules associated with it. We found this concept to be deceiving; 1:1 multicast is distinct from unicast. Particularly problematic for the whatevercast concept is that multicast groups are dynamic, with nodes joining and leaving all the time, so the execution point of the 'set of rules' is unclear. Unicast names and Multicast names may look similar, but have to be different classes of names to make this work. See Ouroboros multicast conjecture.