Topology-aware overlay multicast over IP multicast networks

Abstract

Most existing overlay multicast approaches refuse to consider any network layer support no matter whether it is available or not. This design principle greatly increases the complexity of the routing algorithms and makes the overlay topologies incompatible with the underlying network. To address these issues, topologyaware overlay multicast over IP multicast networks (TOMIMN) was proposed as a novel overlay multicast protocol, which exploits the cooperation between end-hosts and IP multicast routers to construct a topologyaware overlay tree. Through a little modification to protocol independent multicast sparse mode (PIM-SM), a multicast router is able to receive registration from nearby group members and redirect passing-by join requests to them. Due to the multicast router's support, TOMIMN organizes its group members into an overlay multicast tree efficiently, which matches the physical network topology well.