Chapter 15. Multicasting Techniques and Protocols

The capability of multicasting traffic has become a fundamental factor in the design of computer communications. Multicasting is the transmission of data from one source to a group of destinations. Data networks must be able to support such multimedia applications by multicasting data, voice, and video. Multicasting has led to the development of such applications as teleconferencing, multipoint data dissemination , educational distance learning, and Internet TV. In such applications, audio and video streaming technologies are needed to implement multicasting, owing to the real-time component of multimedia applications. In this chapter, we focus on several advanced multicast protocols used in the Internet. The following topics are covered:

• Basic definitions and techniques

• Intradomain multicast protocols

• Interdomain multicast protocols

• Node-level multicast algorithms

The chapter begins with some basic definitions and techniques: multicast group, multicast addresses, and muticast tree algorithms. Next, tree algorithms must be explored, as they are the next set of foundations for understanding Internet packet multicasting Two main classes of protocols are considered : intra domain multicast routing protocols, by which packets are multicast within a domain, and inter domain routing protocols, by which packets multicast among domains. Techniques and algorithms used within router hardware are introduced at the end of the chapter.