Enabling scalable multicast protocols using dynamic overlap tree path

The scalability of a multicast protocol is a very critical issue when it is implemented on a global scale. The number of forwarding states that are maintained at each multicast router explodes when the number of multicast groups grows exponentially as in the case of global Internet. In this paper we describe a technique, called dynamic overlap tree path (DOTP), to reduce the forwarding states that need to be maintained in multicast routers and hence improve the scalability of existing multicast protocols. This technique, which can be incorporated in both the dense and sparse modes of multicast protocols, dynamically finds overlapped unbranched tree paths and merges their corresponding forwarding states to reduce the storage requirement in multicast routers. It does not introduce any additional control-message overheads through the reduction process. OPNET simulation results show that the overall average forwarding-state table size of the simulated networks can be reduced by about 30 per cent on the average.