A Generalized Group Communication Network Stack and its Application to Hybrid Multicast

Abstract

Group communication services are most efficiently implemented on the lowest layer available. Network layer multicast transparently delegates group distribution to the link layer wherever possible. Native multicast deployment, though, has been mainly limited to 'walled gardens' within provider domains. Overlay multicast overcomes these deployment restrictions on the price of a performance penalty. Current activities focus on hybrid approaches which dynamically combine multicast in overlay and underlay, and adaptively optimize group communication. The basic requirement for such a flexibly deployable architecture is a layer-transparent group communication stack that integrates variable multicast protocols by a common API. In this paper, we present a common group communication stack which serves the requirements of data distribution and maintenance for multicast and broadcast on a middleware abstraction layer, suitable for underlay and overlay communication. We discuss its application in the context of hybrid multicast schemes.

A common API for hybrid group communication

“…In this paper, we have presented and discussed such a universal group API, which along the way opens opportunities for enriching group communication functions beyond the basic host group model. The API can be applied immediately to implement inter-domain multicast gateways [2], which may serve as the building blocks in a future hybrid shared multicast architecture. In future work, we plan for real deployment experiments with a special focus on inter-provider interaction.…”

“…The architecture of a hybrid group communication stack and the interplay of overlay and IP multicast routing is described in [2]. In the following, we introduce the corresponding API.…”

“…Such a group communication network stack has been introduced in [2]. In this paper, we discuss the problems of flexible, hybrid P2P networks and present a common multicast API.…”

Application Layer Multicast extensions to RELOAD

“…In hybrid multicast schemes, native multicast islands are interconnected using tunnels [2] or overlays with Application Layer Multicast (ALM) [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. A hybrid protocol has been defined [8] which is based on integrating AMT (Automatic Multicast Tunnel) tunneling mechanism for native multicast (NM) [9] with application layer multicast protocol mechanisms.…”

An XCAST Multicast Implementation for the OverSim Simulator

“…In hybrid multicast schemes, native multicast islands are interconnected using tunnels [2] or overlays [3][4] [5][6] [7]. A hybrid protocol has been defined [9][10] which is based on integrating AMT (Automatic Multicast Tunnel) tunneling mechanism for native multicast (NM) [10] with overlay multicast (OM) protocol mechanisms.…”