MaGMA: mobility and group management architecture for real-time collaborative applications

We introduce MaGMA, a mobility and group management architecture, enabling real-time collaborative group applications such as push-to-talk (PTT) for mobile users. MaGMA provides, for the first time, a comprehensive and scalable solution for group management, seamless mobility, and quality-of-service (QoS). MaGMA is a distributed IP-based architecture consisting of an overlay server network deployed as part of the service infrastructure. MaGMA's architecture consists of a collection of mobile group managers (MGMs), which manage group membership and may also implement a multicast overlay for data delivery. The architecture is very flexible, and can co-exist with current as well as emerging wireless network technologies. We see such services as essential components in beyond-3G (B3G) networks. We propose two group management approaches in the context of MaGMA. We devise protocols for both approaches, evaluate both solutions using simulations, and validate the results through mathematical analysis. Finally, we present a proof-of-concept prototype implementation. Copyright (C) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.