Distributed control of multicast Internet communications with variable QoS constraints
Drissa Houatra · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2001
This paper describes a framework for the design of next generations of multicast services. The framework is based on active and programmable networks, distributed objects and distributed control algorithms with quality-of-service (QoS) constraints. Many of the Internet applications require variable (dynamic) QoS guarantees from networks. This is the case of distributed virtual environments that support the execution of simulation applications, or audio-video communication applications over the Internet. With the development of active and programmable networks, distributed object platforms and system technologies, it becomes feasible to provide multicast services that can be controlled to adapt the allocation of network resources to QoS variations. Multicast services based on the framework described in this paper can be used by application software components to manage network resources, to bring modifications to computations associated to network nodes, and to easily implement distributed control algorithms and services that can take into account variable QoS requirements expressed by applications. The paper focuses on the principles that govern the design and implementation of multicast protocols based on this framework, and the study of some of their major benefits. This work is partially supported by the European Commission - IST research program, under agreement IST-1999-10561: project FAIN.