An IP-multicast based framework for designing synchronous distributed multi-user applications on the Internet

Abstract: This thesis examines the problems of how to design scalable, robust, and distributed real-time media applications for the Internet. An agent based framework for solving this problem is presented. The framework promotes several important design requirements such as modularity and reusability of software modules, remote management of applications, adaptiveness, robustness, accessibility, symmetry and the most important scalability. The issue of scalability is examined on several levels including data-distribution, different end-user platforms, scalability of real-time media flows, bandwidth adaption and scalability of sessions. The design of the framework is based on the important concept of IP-multicast, which allows for scalable distribution of data on the Internet. How this decision has influenced the design of the framework is examined in the thesis. The design of the framework have been verified by building a reference implementation in Java and building a number of high-level end-user applications for real-time e-meetings, e-learning (net-based learning) and social awareness via the e-corridor.