Heterogeneous QoS Multicast and Its Improvement on Edge-Based Overlay Networks

Abstract

Implementing traditional multicast in a network domain including core and edge routers is likely to indicate a huge burden of storage and forwarding for core routers. Supporting QoS aggravates the scalability problem of multicast. The recent multicasting on application layers is more scalable as well as increasing traffic load in network layers and end-to-end delivery delay. In the paper, we deploy the multicast supporting heterogeneous QoS on the overlay only comprising edge routers, and core routers may be unaware of multicast. With router resource limitation and QoS class constraint, we design an algorithm to build minimum cost trees. Also, we present a method to improve the tree performance through introducing some eligible non-member edge routers into multicast session. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed multicast scheme is effective to decrease the total tree cost and satisfy the considered restriction factors. The scheme can offer an option to realize heterogeneous QoS multicast in DiffServ domains or MPLS VPN networks.