Dynamic Multicast Routing with Predetermined Path Approach for Layered Streams

This paper proposes a new dynamic multicast routing algorithm for layered streams. Since a layered multicast technique accommodates different types of users in the same multicast group, it helps to provide multicast services in a heterogeneous environment. However, this makes it difficult to construct an efficient routing tree when receivers join or leave a multicast session dynamically. In the proposed algorithm, we adopt a pre-determined path approach to handle such dynamic membership of a layered multicast session without the burden of much additional traffic. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can minimize the average multicast tree cost, and that it works well on large-scale networks and those with traffic heterogeneity and a small number of routine control messages.