Hierarchical distance-vector multicast routing for the MBone

Abstract

The exponential growth of the Multicast Back-bone (MBone) has resulted in increased routing overhead and processing costs. In this paper we propose a two-level hierarchical routing model as a solution to this problem. This approach involves partitioning the MBone into non-overlapping regions using DVMRP as the inter-region routing protocol; intra-region routing may be accomplished by any of a number of existing multicast protocols. Our design is flexible enough to accommodate additional levels of hierarchy, and protocols other than DVMRP at the higher levels. The unique feature of this approach is the independence of the higher level routing protocol from the subnet addresses, which allows for easy incremental deployment with small changes to existing intra-region protocols.