Patent US 7,796,539

In a network having nodes, N nodes are members of a virtual communications ring for multicast communication among the N Nodes, each of the N Nodes being associated with only an upstream and a downstream one of the other N nodes. One of the N nodes manages changes in ring membership, including requesting the others of the N nodes to participate in measuring distances to a N+1th, node responsive to receiving an insertion request message. The manager node inserts the N+1th node in the communications ring responsive to receiving replies, which 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 ring. Due to the selected location of the N+1th node, communication distances for multicasted messages tend to be shorter than such distances that would otherwise occur.