Host group based scalable overlay multicast on subnet dense mode

Variety of overlay multicast mechanisms have been suggested to remove the barriers that block deployment of IP multicast. However, most of overlay multicast mechanisms do not consider host group model, which is not a problematic portion, but advantageous feature of traditional IP multicast in terms of scalability, robustness, and transparency. Thus, overlay multicast based only on end-hosts may suffer inefficiency such as long data transmission delay, large stress and stretch. In this paper, we propose a hybrid scheme to take advantages of both IP multicast and overlay multicast, based on two principle design factors. By adopting host group model, our scheme can inherently acquire network topology information used to get rid of inefficiency of application level routing, and to gain additional efficiency for many group members on subnet dense mode. Also, we exploits topology-awareness to localize group members so that controls for setting up and maintaining overlay networks can be limited in a domain. Overall network performance is enhanced in our scheme by building overlay network based on performance factors associated with network characteristics using hybrid and hierarchical structure.