Nonblocking WDM multicast switching networks

With ever increasing demands on bandwidth from emerging bandwidth-intensive applications, such as video conferencing, E-commerce, and video-on-demand services, there has been an acute need for very high bandwidth transport network facilities. Optical networks are a promising candidate for this type of applications. At the same time, many bandwidth-intensive applications require multicast services for efficiency purposes. Multicast has been extensively studied in the parallel processing and electronic networking community and has started to receive attention in the optical network community recently. In particular, as WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) networks emerge, supporting WDM multicast becomes increasingly attractive. In this paper, we consider efficient designs of multicast-capable WDM switching networks, which are significantly different and, hence, require nontrivial extensions from their electronic counterparts. We first discuss various multicast models in WDM networks and analyze the nonblocking multicast capacity and network cost under these models. We then propose two methods to construct nonblocking multistage WDM networks to reduce the network cost     

A class of multistage conference switching networks for group communication

There is a growing demand for network support for group applications, in which messages from one or more sender(s) are delivered to a large number of receivers. Here, we propose a network architecture for supporting a fundamental type of group communication, conferencing. A conference refers to a group of members in a network who communicate with each other within the group. We consider adopting a class of multistage networks, such as a baseline, an omega, or an indirect binary cube network, composed of switch modules with fan-in and fan-out capability for a conference network which supports multiple disjoint conferences. The key issue in designing a conference network is to determine the multiplicity of routing conflicts, which is the maximum number of conflict parties competing a single interstage link when multiple disjoint conferences simultaneously present in the network. Our results show that, for a network of size n /spl times/ n, the multiplicities of routing conflicts are small constants (between 2 and 4) for an omega network or an indirect binary cube network; while it can be as large as /spl radic/n/q + 1 for a baseline network, where q is the minimum allowable conference size. Thus, our design for conference networks is based on an omega network or an indirect binary cube network. We also develop fast self-routing algorithms for setting up routing paths in the newly designed conference networks. As can be seen, such an n /spl times/ n conference network has O(logn) routing time and communication delay and O(nlogn) hardware cost. The conference networks are superior to existing designs in terms of routing complexity, communication delay and hardware cost. The conference network proposed is rearrangeably nonblocking in general, and is strictly nonblocking under some conference service policy. It can be used in applications that require efficient or real-time group communication.     

2-Dilated flattened butterfly: A nonblocking switching topology for high-radix networks

High-performance computing is highly dependent on the communication network connecting the nodes. In this paper, we propose a 2-Dilated flattened butterfly (2DFB) network which provides non-blocking performance for relatively low cost overhead. We study the topological properties of the proposed 2DFB network and compare it with different nonblocking switching topologies. We observe that a dilation factor of two is sufficient to obtain nonblocking property for a flattened butterfly structure irrespective of its size or dimension. Dilating each link in a flattened butterfly causes an increase in cost. Therefore, we modeled the implementation cost of a 2DFB network and compared it with other popular nonblocking networks. We observe that the cost of a 2DFB is less than other nonblocking networks, while at the same time providing reduced latency because of its reduced diameter and hop count. We also propose a procedure to develop a conflict-free static routing schedule as well as an adaptive load balanced routing scheme (ALDFB) for 2DFB networks. Finally, we also describe the hardware implementation of a 2DFB network using the NetFPGA as the switching element and verify the nonblocking behavior of a 2DFB. We also show that the 2DFB topology can be used to build high speed switching systems with reduced cost.     

Scalable and Practical Nonblocking Switching Networks

Large-scale strictly nonblocking （SNB） and wide-sense nonblocking （WSNB） networks may be infeasible due to their high cost. In contrast, rearrangeable nonblocking （RNB） networks are more scalable because of their much lower cost. However, RNB networks are not suitable for circuit switching. In this paper, the concept of virtual nonblockingness is introduced. It is shown that a virtual nonblocking （VNB） network functions like an SNB or WSNB network, but it is constructed with the cost of an RNB network. The results indicate that for large-scale circuit switching applications, it is only needed to build VNB networks.     

组播路由综合优化及其算法

路由优化是组播通信的一个关键问题,它的目标是将低路由费用。论文中首次提出了组播路由费用综合优化的思想,即组播路由的网络费用和目的地费用同时得到优化：优化网络费用以降低路由消耗的网络资源;优化目的地费用以减少源到目的地的平均时延。并提出了一种组播路由综合优化算法,该算法的时间复杂性低,实现简单,还可以分布式实现。     

严格无阻塞多播三级Clos网的优化

如何在严格无阻塞情况下保持最低的硬件代价,是多播三级Clos网设计中的一个重要问题.提出一种优化网络硬件代价的方法,分别给出了在没有多播受限和中间级多播受限两种情况下,严格无阻塞多播三级Clos网硬件代价的最优值.分析表明,优化后网络的硬件代价得到了有效降低,在某些情况下甚至低于广义无阻塞网.同时,与广义无阻塞网相比,该网络无需特定的路由算法就能始终保持严格无阻塞状态,在一定程度上降低了时间复杂度.     

多媒体通信中带度约束的多播路由算法

随着多媒体业务的发展,多播技术应用日益广泛,多播路由是要寻找连接源节点和一组目的节点的一棵多播树,这个问题在数学上归结为Steiner树问题,它是一个NPC问题。在实际网络中,网络节点具备不同的多播能力,有些节点不支持多播,有些节点支持多播,但为了保证网络速度和节点负载平衡,支持多播的节点要限制其复制信息的数量,即节点的多播能力受限。在这种情况下,寻找多播树变得更加困难,该文用节点的约束来表示敏个节点具备的多播能力,节点多播能力受限情况下的多播路由问题被称为带度约束的多播路由问题,其仍是一个NPC问题。该文提出了一种求解带度的约束多播路由问题的双层遗传算法。算法的基本思想是最优多播树应是一棵满足度约束的最小生成树,因此问题的关键在于如何找到包括在最优生成树中的Steiner节点。遗传算法 采用二进制编码方式,内层算法用于求解满足度约束的最小生成树;外层算法进行全局搜索。该文将算法在稀疏图上进行实验,为了更好地模拟真实网络,稀疏图中每个节点具有不同的多播能力,并且多播目的节点数目相比于网络节点数要小。实验对算法进行了三方面比较：（1）解的质量;（2）计算时间;（3）算法的收敛性。实验结果表明,文中提出的遗传算法能够找到费用较小的多播树,但是当网络规模增大时,算法的求解时间也较长。     

Performance evaluation of a mesh-evolving quality-of-service-aware multicast routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks

The tremendous amount of multimedia applications running across the wireless communication medium makes quality of service (QoS) a fundamental requirement for mobile ad hoc networks. However, it is not easy to incorporate QoS into these networks. Moreover, the growing number of group-oriented applications also necessitates the efficient utilisation of network resources. The multicast model is a promising technique which can achieve this efficiency by facilitating the inherent broadcast capability of the wireless medium. The mesh-evolving ad hoc QoS multicast (MAQM) routing protocol is developed to address the resource efficiency and QoS problems with one, integrated solution. MAQM achieves multicast efficiency by tracking the availability of resources for each node within its neighbourhood. The QoS status is monitored continuously and announced periodically to the extent of QoS provision. Using these features, MAQM nodes can make their decisions on joining a new multicast session based on the sustainability of their perceived QoS. MAQM also evolves the initial multicast tree into a mesh during the course of an ongoing session to achieve a more robust network topology. Thus, MAQM integrates the concept of QoS-awareness into multicast routing in mobile ad hoc networks. Since ad hoc networks require the protocol control overhead to be as small as possible, we analyse the multicast session establishment process of MAQM to see its impact on the protocol performance in terms of system control overhead. We also evaluate the performance of MAQM through computer simulations using various qualitative and quantitative criteria. The simulation results validate our mathematical analysis of the control overhead and show that MAQM significantly improves multicast efficiency through its QoS-aware admission and routing decisions with an acceptably small overhead. Thus, MAQM shows that QoS is not only essential for, but also applicable to mobile ad hoc networks.     

Efficient architectures and algorithms for multicasting data in computer communication networks

This paper presents two network architectures with associated routing and multicast algorithms for improved performance under multicasting traffic conditions. A conditionally nonblocking network, referred to as a Clos network, forms the basis for the development of efficient multicast communication networks. The Clos network is first analyzed under multicast traffic conditions for blocking and multicast overflow probability. The analysis determines the overflow probability under two different multicast distribution assumptions. The first distribution assumes all packets request the same number of copies and the second distribution uses a random number of requested copies. An analysis of an extension of the presented network to multiplexed parallel planes of a network shows a significant improvement on the network performance and particularly on the carried traffic load when compared with previously published multicast architectures using different buffering strategies.     

QoS动态多播路由协议

保证服务质量的QoS（Quality of Service）路由是网络中解决OoS问题的一项关键技术．具有OoS约束的多播路由技术已成为网络领域的一个重要研究课题．该文研讨了具有QoS约束的动态多播路由问题．文中描述了一种适应于QoS多播路由的网络模型，提出了一种QoS动态多播路由协议（QDMRP）．QDMRP只要求网络链路（或节点）的局部状态信息，不需要维护全局状态信息．QDMRP较好地减少构造一棵多播树的开销．仿真实验结果表明：QDMRP具有较低的控制信息开销和节点加入时延，较好地适合于网络状态变化比较频繁的环境以及实时多媒体应用．     

Hierarchical agent-based secure and reliable multicast in wireless mesh networks

We propose and analyze a hierarchical agent-based secure and reliable multicast (HASRM) algorithm for efficiently supporting secure and reliable mobile multicast in wireless mesh networks, with design considerations given to minimize the overall network cost incurred by reliable multicast packet delivery, mobility management, security key management, and group membership maintenance. HASRM dynamically maintains a group of multicast agents running on mesh routers for integrated mobility and multicast service management and leverages a hierarchical multicast structure for secure and reliable multicast data delivery. The regional service size of each multicast agent is a key design parameter. We show via model-based performance analysis and simulation validation that there exists an optimal regional service size that minimizes the overall communication cost and the optimal regional service size can be dynamically determined. We demonstrate that HASRM under optimal settings significantly outperforms traditional algorithms based on shortest-path multicast trees extended with user mobility, security, and reliability support. We also show that a variant of HASRM is superior to a recently proposed multicast algorithm for secure group communication in wireless mesh networks.     

Topology Design of Network-Coding-Based Multicast Networks

It is anticipated that a large amount of multicast traffic needs to be supported in future communication networks. The network coding technique proposed recently is promising for establishing multicast connections with a significantly lower bandwidth requirement than that of traditional Steiner-tree-based multicast connections. How to design multicast network topologies with the consideration of efficiently supporting multicast by the network coding technique becomes an important issue now. It is notable, however, that the conventional algorithms for network topology design are mainly unicast-oriented, and they cannot be adopted directly for the efficient topology design of network-coding-based multicast networks by simply treating each multicast as multiple unicasts. In this paper, we consider for the first time the novel topology design problem of network-coding-based multicast networks. Based on the characteristics of multicast and network coding, we first formulate this problem as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem, which is NP-hard, and then propose two heuristic algorithms for it. The effectiveness of our heuristics is verified through simulation and comparison with the exhaustive search method. We demonstrate in this paper that, in the topology design of multicast networks, adopting the network coding technique to support multicast transmissions can significantly reduce the overall topology cost as compared to conventional unicast-oriented design and the Steiner-tree-based design.     

一种新的无线网络组播密钥管理方案

在无线网络中,多播组成员的变化是劝态的,在某些特殊应用中,成员可能会在一段时间段内频繁地加入和离开,此时有线网络中的传统组播密钥管理方法就会体现出不足。针对此不足,提出一种适应于无线网络的组播密钥管理方案。该方案根据地理位置将组播成员划分为不同子组,每个子组根据本子组成员的变化情况来设置密钥更新间隔TTR和请求数的阀值RT。通过子组管理员来协调本子组与其他成员通信保持一致,提高通信效率、降低异步问题。理论分析和仿真结果表明：该方案在保证组播成员安全通信的基础上,显著地降低无线网络中的组播应用因密钥更新导致的通信开销,从而提高密钥更新效率,使无线网络在处理大流量等应用问题的同时,也具有较高的安全性。     

Link layer for cooperating processes on a LAN with enhanced communication services

Most local area networks support multicast and broadcast communication facilities among the network nodes. However, their use among processes has been limited by the lack of support in the distributed operating system kernel and by the limited requirements of traditional computer network applications. Some applications (e.g. operating in a multicast environment) and distributed algorithms require advanced associations among processes, whose support by the operating system kernel can take advantage of properly designed functions provided by the communication subsystem. This problem is examined in the context of an architecture for LANs, and enhanced protocols are described that can be provided by a communication subsystem based on a LAN. Virtual network protocols provide classes of service suited to a multicast environment. Their availability at communication subsystem layers offers higher layers a common framework for the implementation of a computing system with distributed control.     

6LoWPAN网络组播通信方案的研究与设计

随着无线传感器网络(WSN)对新应用的需求不断增加,基于IEEE 802.15.4实现IPv6通信的低速无线个人局域网标准6LoWPAN是将WSN接入Internet实现全IP通信的理想解决方案.在此提出了一种基于6LoWPAN网络的组播通信方案,通过自组建M AC地址的方式,对现有的6LoWPAN网络增加了对组播通信...     

GLBM: A new QoS aware multicast scheme for wireless mesh networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have been attracting significant attention due to their promising technology. The WMN technology is becoming a major avenue for the fourth generation of wireless mobility. Communication in large-scale wireless networks can create bottlenecks for scalable implementations of computationally intensive applications. A class of crucially important communication patterns that have already received considerable attention in this regard are group communication operations, since these inevitably place a high demand on network bandwidth and have a consequent impact on algorithm execution times. Multicast communication has been among the most primitive group capabilities of any message passing in networks. It is central to many important distributed applications in science and engineering and fundamental to the implementation of higher-level communication operations such as gossip, gather, and barrier synchronisation. Existing solutions offered for providing multicast communications in WMN have severe restriction in terms of almost all performance characteristics. Consequently, there is a need for the design and analysis of new efficient multicast communication schemes for this promising network technology. Hence, the aim of this study is to tackle the challenges posed by the continuously growing need for delivering efficient multicast communication over WMN. In particular, this study presents a new load balancing aware multicast algorithm with the aim of enhancing the QoS in the multicast communication over WMNs. Our simulations experiments show that our proposed multicast algorithm exhibits superior performance in terms of delay, jitter and throughput, compared to the most well known multicast algorithms.     

Optimal replication algorithms for hierarchical mobility management in PCS networks

In the context of heterogeneous networks and diverse communication devices, real person-to-person communication can be achieved with a universal personal identification (UPI) that uniquely identifies an individual and is independent of the access networks and communication devices. Hierarchical mobility management techniques (MMTs) have been proposed to support UPI. Traditional replication methods for improving the performance of such MMTs are threshold based. In this paper, we present optimal replication algorithms that minimize the network messaging cost based on network structure, communication link cost, and user calling and mobility statistics. We develop our algorithms for both unicast and multicast replica update strategies. The performance of these replication algorithms is studied via large scale network simulations and compared to results obtained from the threshold-based method.     

基于遗传算法的带宽-时延约束多播路由优化算法

随着许多多媒体在高速网络中的应用,多播路由问题成为越来越重要的课题。多播路由问题在计算机网络中是著名的Steiner树问题,同时也是NP完全问题。该文提出了一种基于遗传算法的多播路由优化算法,采用可变长度染色体(多播树)和基因(路径)应用于编码问题。该算法在满足带宽和时延约束条件下寻找代价最小的多播树。仿真实验证明该算法能快速找到最优解,收敛速度快,可靠性高,能够满足多媒体网络对实时性的要求。     

RTP和IP组播技术在多媒体通信中的应用研究

实时传输协议(RTP)是当前Internet上较理想的多媒体通信协议。IP组播是以TCP／IP网络为载体的具有一对多和多对多的数据交付能力的技术。本文阐述RTP协议的机理和IP组播技术，并对两者在多媒体通信中的结合使用加以分析。     

Multicast Routing Optimization Algorithm with Bandwidth and Delay Constraints Based on GA

Most of the multimedia applications require strict QoS guarantee during the communication between a single source and multiple destinations. This gives rise to the need for an efficient QoS multicast routing strategy. Determination of such QoS-based optimal multicast routes basically leads to a multi-objective optimization problem, which is computationally intractable in polynomial time due to the uncertainty of resources in networks. This paper proposes a new multicast routing optimization algorithm based on Genetic Algorithms, which find the low-cost multicasting tree with bandwidth and delay constraints. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is able to find a better solution, fast convergence speed and high reliability. It can meet the real-time requirement in multimedia communication networks. The scalability and the performance of the algorithm with increasing number of network nodes are also quite encouraged.