ATM multicasting and the CalREN testbed

In this survey paper, I present the problems associated with ATM multicast communication and report various proposals of mow to approach the problem. Perhaps the most fundamental problem with ATM multicasting is whether ATM can internetwork with IP transparently. IP multicasting is a connectionless oriented, receiver-initiated join mechanism; while ATM multicasting is a connection-oriented, server-initiated join service. Two basic approaches exist for intra-subnet ATM multicasting, the 'VC mesh' approach and the MCS approach. This paper discusses a number of issues, including IP/ATM internetworking, IP/ATM LAN/WAN multicasting, and various experiments done on the CalREN testbed.