A Stable Scheme of Application Layer Multicast for Heterogeneous and Dynamic Networks

The low stability problem of application layer multicast in the dynamic and heterogeneous network environment is considered in this paper. We propose a highly stable application layer multicast scheme based on gossip protocol and cooperative forwarding mechanism to improve the stability of a multicast system. Through the cooperative forwarding mechanism, nodes with different forwarding capabilities cooperate together to maintain the stable distribution of the multicast data. The loads of different nodes within an overlay topology are more balanced by using gossip protocol. Simulation using the OMNeT++ framework shows that the proposed scheme improves the success rate of data distribution effectively under the premise of guaranteeing the stability and consecutiveness of a multicast system.