Xcast – a New Scheme for Multicast
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Xcast – a new scheme for multicast Zhang Ying Overview 1. Introduction 2. Xcast Overview 3. The cost of the traditional multicast scheme 4. Motivation 5. Application 6. Xcast Flexibility 1.Introduction Multicast sends data to a group of destinations efficiently Xcast – Explicit Multicast complements the existing scheme eliminates the per session signaling and per session state information supports a very large number of small multicast sessions 2. Xcast Overview Terminology used here: Session ‘multicast session’ used instead of ‘multicast group’ Channel In a session with multiple senders, the flow sourced by one send will be called a channel. How does Xcast work?(1) The source node keeps track of the destinations in the multicast channel that it wants to send packets to. The source node encodes the list of destinations in the Xcast header and sends the packet to a router Each router along the way parses the header, partitions the destinations based on each destination’s next hop, and forwards a packet with an appropriate Xcast header to each of the next hops How does Xcast work?(2) When there is only one destinations left, the Xcast packet can be converted into a normal unicast packet, which can be unicasted along the remainder of the router. How does Xcast work?—example(1) How does Xcast work?—example(2) Perform a router lookup table to determine the next hop for each of the destinations listed in the packet Partition the set of destinations based on their next hop Replicate the packet so that there‘s one copy of the packet for each of the next hops found in the previous steps. How does Xcast work?—example(3) Modify the list of destinations in each of the copies so that the list in the copy for a given next hop includes just the destinations that ought to be routed through that next hop Send the modified copies of the packet on to the next hop If there is only one destination for a particular next hop, the packet can be sent as a standard unicast packet to the destination 3. The cost of Traditional Multicast Scheme Traditional multicast were designed to handle very large multicast group. Scalability problems will occur when there is a very large number of groups. Two components of traditional IP multicast model The Host Group model A Multicast Routing Protocol The Host Group Model A group of hosts is identified by a multicast group address, which is used both for subscriptions and forwarding. Two main costs Multicast address allocation Destination unawareness A Routing Algorithm Maintains the member state and delivery tree Can be done by either a broadcast algorithm or a multicast algorithm Costs of multicast routing protocol Connection state Source advertisement mechanism Interdomain routing 4. Motivation – Advantages(1) 1. Routers do not have to maintain state per session 2. No multicast address allocation required 3. No need for multicast routing protocols 4. No core node, so no single point of failure 5. Symmetric paths are not required 6. Automatic reaction to unicast resources 7. Easy security and accounting 4. Motivation – Advantages(2) 8. Heterogeneous receiver 9. Xcast packets can make use of traffic engineered unicast path 10. Simple implementation of reliable protocols on the top of Xcast 11. Flexibility 12. Easy transition mechanisms 4. Motivation – Disadvantages(1) 1. Overhead: each packet contains all remaining destinations 2. More complex header processing: each destination in the packet needs a routing lookup table 3. Xcast only works with a limited number of receivers 5. Application IP telephony, video conferencing, multi-player games, collaborative e-meetings etc. Bridging the access link 6. Xcast Flexibility Reference Internet Draft <draft-ooms-xcast-basic-spec- 07.txt> ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/internet- drafts/draft-ooms-xcast-basic-spec-07.txt R. Boivie, N. Feldman, Y. Imai, W. Livens, D. Ooms, O. Paridaens, E. Muramoto.