End-host controlled multicast routing

The last decade has seen a deluge of proposals for supporting multicast in the Internet. These proposals can be categorized as either infrastructure-based, with the multicast functionality provided by specialized network nodes, or host-based, with the multicast functionality provided by the members of the multicast group itself. In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of a hybrid multicast architecture wherein the infrastructure provides packet forwarding, and the end-hosts implement the control plane. End-hosts build multicast trees by setting tip forwarding state in the infrastructure. This division of functionality enables our architecture to combine the efficiency of infrastructure-based solutions and the flexibility and deployability of host-based solutions. We present scalable and efficient algorithms for distributed tree construction and maintenance, and for reliable packet delivery. We have implemented the algorithms using 3 as the forwarding infrastructure. We evaluate our techniques using a combination of event-driven packet-level simulations, and our implementation over the PlanetLab testbed. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.