A Comparative Study of Multicast Protocols Top, Bottom, or In the Middle

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AComparativeStudyofMulticastProtocols:

Top,Bottom,orIntheMiddle?

LiLao1,Jun-HongCui2,MarioGerla1,DarioMaggiorini3

1ComputerScienceDepartment,UniversityofCalifornia,LosAngeles,CA90095

2ComputerScience&EngineeringDepartment,UniversityofConnecticut,Storrs,CT06029

3ComputerScienceDepartment,UniversityofMilano,viaComelico39,Milano,Italy

Abstract—Multicastsolutionshavebeenevolvingfrom“bottom”to“top”,i.e.,fromIPlayer(calledIPmulti-cast)toapplicationlayer(referredtoasapplicationlayermulticast).Recently,therearesomenewproposals(namedasoverlaymulticast)usingcertain“infrastructure”(com-posedofproxies)inthemiddle.AlthoughitiswellacceptedthatapplicationlayermulticastandoverlaymulticastareeasiertodeploywhilesacrificingbandwidthefficiencycomparedwithIPmulticast,littleresearchhasbeendonetosystematicallyevaluateandcomparetheirperformance.Inthispaper,weconductacomparativestudyofdifferenttypesofmulticastroutingprotocols.Wefirstpresentaqualitativecomparisonofthreetypesofprotocols,andthenweprovideaquantitativestudyoffourrepresentativeprotocols,namely,PIM-SSM,NARADA,NICE,andPOMbyextensivesimulations.Ourstudieswillhelptoanswersomeofthemostimportantquestions,suchaswhichwaytogo:top,bottom,orinthemiddle?

I.INTRODUCTION

Recently,moreandmoregroupcommunicationap-

plications(e.g.,video-conferencing,online-gaming,and

long-distanceeducation)haveemergedwiththeincreas-

ingpopularityoftheInternet.Tosupportsuchmulti-

userapplications,multicastisconsideredasaveryeffi-

cientmechanismsinceitusessomedeliverystructures

(e.g.,treesormeshes)toforwarddatafromsendersto

receivers,aimingtoreduceduplicatepackets.Initially,

multicastisimplementedattheIPlayer(i.e.,IPmulticast

[13]),inwhichatreedeliverystructurecomposedof

networkroutersisusuallyemployed,withdatapackets

onlyreplicatedatbranchingnodes([26],[24],[14]).

However,duetomanytechnicalandmarketingreasons,

suchasthelackofascalableinter-domainmulticast

routingprotocol,therequirementofglobaldeployment

ofmulticast-capableIProutersandthelackofpractical

pricingmodels,itisstillfarfrombeingwidelydeployed

[2],[15].

ToresolvethedeploymentissuesofIPmulticast,ap-

plicationlayermulticast([11],[17],[4],[27],[20],[23],

[29],[34],[7])andoverlaymulticast([9],[19],[10],

[31],[30],[5])havebeenproposed.Inbothapproaches,

certainnodesformavirtualnetwork,andmulticast

deliverystructuresareconstructedontopofthisvirtual

network.Datapacketsarereplicatedatparticipating

nodesanddeliveredthroughtunnels.However,thereare

significantdifferencesbetweenthesetwoapproaches.

Theformerapproachreliesonlyonendhoststhatare

partofamulticastgroup,whereasthelatteroneusesstrategicallydeployedoverlayproxynodes(sometimes

referredtoasservicenodes)besidesendhostsinorder

tofacilitatethemanagementofgroupmembershipand

multicastdeliverystructures.Comparatively,thesetwo

approachesaremucheasiertodeploythanIPmulticast.

Ontheotherhand,however,theysacrificetheefficiency

ofmulticast,sincesomedatapacketsmightbetransmit-

tedoverthesamephysicallinkmultipletimes.

Eventhoughitiswellacceptedthatapplicationlayer

multicastandoverlaymulticasttradebandwidtheffi-

ciencyforeasierdeployment,littleresearchhasbeen

donetosystematicallyevaluateandcomparetheirperfor-

mance.Answersformanyimportantquestionsarestill

open.Forexample,howmuchworsedotheupperlayer

alternativesolutionsperformcomparedtoIPmulticast?

Cantheyserveasalong-termsubstitutetoIPmulticast,

oronlyasatemporarysolutiontocircumventthediffi-

cultiesofdeployingIPmulticast?Whatarethetrade-offs

ofusingextraoverlayproxiesvs.relyingsolelyonend

hosts?Inotherwords,whichupperlayerarchitecture

shouldwechooseinwhichscenario?

Inthispaper,westrivetoanswerthesequestions.We

comparetheirperformancewithrespecttoavarietyof

metricsthroughextensivesimulationstudies.Wealso

evaluatetheimpactofoverlaystructure(suchasthe

numberofproxies)onoverlaymulticastperformance.

Ourgoalistoprovideguidelinesforresearchersand

developerstoadoptappropriateschemesunderdifferent

conditions.Toourbestknowledge,thisisthefirstwork

onverticallycomparingmulticastprotocolsimplemented

onthreedifferentlayersoftheprotocolstack.

Theremainingpaperisorganizedasfollows.InSec-

tionII,wegiveanoverviewonthethreemulticast

architecturesandprovideaqualitativecomparison.We

describeourexperimentalmethodologiesinSectionIII.

ThenwepresentthesimulationresultsinSectionIV.

Finally,webrieflyreviewrelatedworkinSectionVand

concludeourworkinSectionVI.

II.MULTICASTROUTINGPROTOCOLOVERVIEW

Inthissection,weprovideabriefoverviewonthe

multicastroutingprotocolsandgiveaqualitativecom-

parison.Fig.1givesahighlevelillustrationofthethree

multicastarchitectures,namely,IPmulticast,application

layermulticast,andoverlaymulticast.