Subject: [MALLOC] Paper: End to End Aggregation of Multicast Addresses

From: Bob Briscoe <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 09:05:07 +0000

LSMA, IDMR, MMUSIC & BGMP/MASC lists,

[Please cc replies to me personally, as I'm not on all these lists.
Apologies for this cross-posting: I guess if an IETF MALLOC group gets off
the ground it won't be necessary.]

I had an idea in early Oct for multicast address aggregation which we've
written up and just "published" at:
http://www.labs.bt.com/people/briscorj/projects/lsma/e2ama.html
21 pages

It was intended to be an Internet Draft, but I won't go into the stream of
system failures that made me miss the deadline by an hour and have stopped
me publishing it until today. If you would like .ps or .txt format copies
before the I-D system re-opens on 7 Dec, these are at:
http://www.labs.bt.com/people/briscorj/projects/lsma/draft-briscoe-ama-00.ps
http://www.labs.bt.com/people/briscorj/projects/lsma/draft-briscoe-ama-00.txt

It won't be possible to present this at Washington (I'm elsewhere), so I'd
appreciate comments or requests for clarificaton by e-mail.

End to End Aggregation of Multicast Addresses
=============================================
Abstract

This paper presents an approach for solving the inherent problem with
multicast
routing scalability - by co-operation between end-systems and the network.
We introduce an extremely efficient, elegant way to name arbitrary sized
inter-meshed aggregations of multicast addresses. This is done in such
a way that it is easy to calculate how to change the name to encompass
many more related names. We describe how these aggregate names could be
used anywhere in place of the set of addresses to which they refer, not
by resolving them into multiple operations, but by a single bulk action
throughout the routing tree, and in session descriptions potentially including
those for reservations. Initial aggregation in end-systems might only reduce
the problem by an order of magnitude, but it is believed that this will
provide sufficient structure for routers to be able to recognise further
aggregation potential. To improve the chances of router aggregation,
address set allocation schemes must fulfil certain criteria that are laid
down in this paper.

Bob

________________________________________________________
Notice: This contribution is the personal view of the 
author and does not necessarily reflect the technical nor 
commercial direction of British Telecommunications plc.
________________________________________________________
Bob Briscoe      http://www.labs.bt.com/people/briscorj/