Patent ID: 7715330

Claim:
A method in a network having nodes and a transport layer protocol providing end to end data transfer, wherein N of the nodes are members of a virtual communications ring for multicast communication among the N nodes, each of the N member nodes being logically associated with only a logically upstream one of the N nodes and a logically downstream one of the N nodes, and wherein for the communications ring one of the N nodes functions as a manager node for managing changes in ring membership, the method comprising: a) requesting, by the manager node, the others of the N member nodes to participate in measuring respective communication distances to a N+1th, non-member node responsive to the manager node receiving an insertion request message from the non-member node; and b) inserting, by the manager node, the N+1th node as a new member node in the communications ring responsive to receiving replies to the requesting, wherein the inserting includes inserting the N+1th node in a selected location between two selected ones of the N nodes, such that the N nodes and the N+1th node are enabled to multicast messages around the communication ring and communications distances for the multicasted messages tend to be shorter due to the selected location of the N+1th node than would communications distances that would arise for other possible locations of the N+1th node, wherein b) includes: selecting, as a first one of the two selected ones of the N nodes, one of the N nodes having a shortest communications distance to the N+1th node; and selecting, as a second one of the two selected ones of the N nodes, the one of the upstream and downstream nodes of the first selected node having a shortest communications distance to the N+1th node.