A scalable MPLS multicast solution for dense mode multicast networks

Multimedia applications and database servers require multicast support from IP (Internet Protocol) layer. These applications are categorized as long duration and high bandwidth flows. To bring quality of service into IP multicast, resource reservation and traffic engineering are required. These features are supported by Multiple Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) on IP networks. Unfortunately, MPLS was designed mainly for unicast. This paper provides an efficient solution for forwarding IP multicast traffic over MPLS networks. One of the most important issues is scalability because of group dynamics. A scalable multicast MPLS solution needs to have label space minimization. This paper presents an approach that minimizes the label space allocation and LSP (label switched path) setup time in dense mode multicast networks.