Low Cost Quality of Service Multicast Routing in High Speed Networks

Many of the services envisaged for high speed networks, such as B-ISDN/ATM, will support real-time applications with large numbers of users. Examples of these types of application range from those used by closed groups, such as private video meetings or conferences, where all participants must be known to the sender, to applications used by open groups, such as video lectures, where partcipants need not be known by the sender. These types of application will require high volumes of network resources in addition to the real-time delay constraints on data delivery. For these reasons, several multicast routing heuristics have been proposed to support both interactive and distribution multimedia services, in high speed networks. The objective of such heuristics is to minimise the multicast tree cost while maintaining a real-time bound on delay. Previous evaluation work has compared the relative average performance of some of these heuristics and concludes that they are generally efficient, although some perform better for small multicast groups and others perform better for larger groups. Firstly, we present a detailed analysis and evaluation of some of these heuristics which illustrates that in some situations their average performance is reversed; a heuristic that in general produces efficient solutions for small multicasts may sometimes produce a more efficient solution for a particular large multicast, in a specific network. Also, in a limited number of cases using Dijkstra's algorithm produces the best result. We conclude that the efficiency of a heuristic solution depends on the topology of both the network and the multicast, and that it is difficult to predict. Because of this unpredictability we propose the integration of two heuristics with Dijkstra's shortest path tree algorithm to produce a hybrid that consistently generates efficient multicast solutions for all possible multicast groups in any network. These heuristics are based on Dijkstra's algorithm which maintains acceptable time complexity for the hybrid, and they rarely produce inefficient solutions for the same network/multicast. The resulting performance attained is generally good and in the rare worst cases is that of the shortest path tree. The performance of our hybrid is supported by our evaluation results. Secondly, we examine the stability of multicast trees where multicast group membership is dynamic. We conclude that, in general, the more efficient the solution of a heuristic is, the less stable the multicast tree will be as multicast group membership changes. For this reason, while the hybrid solution we propose might be suitable for use with closed user group multicasts, which are likely to be stable, we need a different approach for open user group multicasting, where group membership may be highly volatile. We propose an extension to an existing heuristic that ensures multicast tree stability where multicast group membership is dynamic. Although this extension decreases the efficiency of the heuristics solutions, its performance is significantly better than that of the worst case, a shortest path tree. Finally, we consider how we might apply the hybrid and the extended heuristic in current and future multicast routing protocols for the Internet and for ATM Networks.

A Review of the Energy Efficient and Secure Multicast Routing Protocols for Mobile Ad hoc Networks

This paper presents a thorough survey of recent work addressing energy efficient multicast routing protocols and secure multicast routing protocols in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). There are so many issues and solutions which witness the need of energy management and security in ad hoc wireless networks. The objective of a multicast routing protocol for MANETs is to support the propagation of data from a sender to all the receivers of a multicast group while trying to use the available bandwidth efficiently in the presence of frequent topology changes. Multicasting can improve the efficiency of the wireless link when sending multiple copies of messages by exploiting the inherent broadcast property of wireless transmission. Secure multicast routing plays a significant role in MANETs. However, offering energy efficient and secure multicast routing is a difficult and challenging task. In recent years, various multicast routing protocols have been proposed for MANETs. These protocols have distinguishing features and use different mechanismsComment: 15 page

MENU: multicast emulation using netlets and unicast

High-end networking applications such as Internet TV and software distribution have generated a demand for multicast protocols as an integral part of the network. This will allow such applications to support data dissemination to large groups of users in a scalable and reliable manner. Existing IP multicast protocols lack these features and also require state storage in the core of the network which is costly to implement. In this paper, we present a new multicast protocol referred to as MENU. It realises a scalable and a reliable multicast protocol model by pushing the tree building complexity to the edges of the network, thereby eliminating processing and state storage in the core of the network. The MENU protocol builds multicast support in the network using mobile agent based active network services, Netlets, and unicast addresses. The multicast delivery tree in MENU is a two level hierarchical structure where users are partitioned into client communities based on geographical proximity. Each client community in the network is treated as a single virtual destination for traffic from the server. Netlet based services referred to as hot spot delegates (HSDs) are deployed by servers at "hot spots" close to each client community. They function as virtual traffic destinations for the traffic from the server and also act as virtual source nodes for all users in the community. The source node feeds data to these distributed HSDs which in turn forward data to all downstream users through a locally constructed traffic delivery tree. It is shown through simulations that the resulting system provides an efficient means to incrementally build a source customisable secured multicast protocol which is both scalable and reliable. Furthermore, results show that MENU employs minimal processing and reduced state information in networks when compared to existing IP multicast protocols

Multicast Mobility in Mobile IP Version 6 (MIPv6) : Problem Statement and Brief Survey

Publisher PD

ADN: An Information-Centric Networking Architecture for the Internet of Things

Forwarding data by name has been assumed to be a necessary aspect of an information-centric redesign of the current Internet architecture that makes content access, dissemination, and storage more efficient. The Named Data Networking (NDN) and Content-Centric Networking (CCNx) architectures are the leading examples of such an approach. However, forwarding data by name incurs storage and communication complexities that are orders of magnitude larger than solutions based on forwarding data using addresses. Furthermore, the specific algorithms used in NDN and CCNx have been shown to have a number of limitations. The Addressable Data Networking (ADN) architecture is introduced as an alternative to NDN and CCNx. ADN is particularly attractive for large-scale deployments of the Internet of Things (IoT), because it requires far less storage and processing in relaying nodes than NDN. ADN allows things and data to be denoted by names, just like NDN and CCNx do. However, instead of replacing the waist of the Internet with named-data forwarding, ADN uses an address-based forwarding plane and introduces an information plane that seamlessly maps names to addresses without the involvement of end-user applications. Simulation results illustrate the order of magnitude savings in complexity that can be attained with ADN compared to NDN.Comment: 10 page

Roaming Real-Time Applications - Mobility Services in IPv6 Networks

Emerging mobility standards within the next generation Internet Protocol, IPv6, promise to continuously operate devices roaming between IP networks. Associated with the paradigm of ubiquitous computing and communication, network technology is on the spot to deliver voice and videoconferencing as a standard internet solution. However, current roaming procedures are too slow, to remain seamless for real-time applications. Multicast mobility still waits for a convincing design. This paper investigates the temporal behaviour of mobile IPv6 with dedicated focus on topological impacts. Extending the hierarchical mobile IPv6 approach we suggest protocol improvements for a continuous handover, which may serve bidirectional multicast communication, as well. Along this line a multicast mobility concept is introduced as a service for clients and sources, as they are of dedicated importance in multipoint conferencing applications. The mechanisms introduced do not rely on assumptions of any specific multicast routing protocol in use.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure