Patent ID: 8149830

Claim:
A method for communication in a computing environment, the method comprising: transmitting a first data packet in a send queue to a plurality of receiving units in a first set; receiving one or more acknowledgement messages (ACKs) from one or more of the plurality of receiving units in a second set, wherein the second set is a subset of the first set; removing the first data packet from the send queue, in response to receiving at least one ACK from N receiving units from the plurality of receiving units within a time threshold; re-transmitting the first data packet from the send queue to the plurality of receiving units in the first set, in response to failing to receive at least one ACK from the N receiving units within the time threshold; and controlling number of ACKs sent by the plurality of receiving units in the first set to increase network reliability by: adding one or more receiving units to the second set, in response to receiving less than a threshold number of ACKs from said N receiving units in said time threshold; or replacing one or more receiving units in the second set, in response to determining that the receiving units do not meet a reliability threshold.