CSTO_PROJECT_INFORMATION

PROJECT_SUMMARY

AO_NUMBER D079

CONTRACTOR_OR_ORGANIZATION_NAME University College London

PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Peter Kirstein and Jon Crowcroft

Department of Computer Science Gower St London, WC1E 6BT UK tel +44-171-380-7286 fax +44-171-387-1397 e-mail kirstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk

Supporting Internet Multicast Multimedia.

See also Home Page

OBJECTIVE

Multicast has emerged as one of the key enabling technologies for supporting next generation networking applications such as video conferencing. We believe that the following mechanisms have to be developed before multicast can be used by wider community at a more regular basis. Mechanisms for supporting multicast routing protocols such as coreplacement strategies for CBT and PIM, Quality of Service path selection in multicast tree formation, and unicast support for reverse path calculation. Mechanisms for utilising multicast capability in applications such as feedback control in a multicast environment, management of applications in a multicast group, and reliable multicasttransport. Mechanisms for integrating resource management with multicast forwarding, such as interface between forwarding engine and caching issues. The purpose of the proposed research project is to develop novel mechanisms for supporting and utilising Internet multicast. In particular, we will carry out research and development in the three areas identified above. We intend to carry out in the following tasks
  1. 1. Design of a core placement algorithm for CBT and PIM.
  2. 2. Investigate Quality of Service (QoS) support in multicast routing.
  3. 3. Study security issues and protection mechanisms for multicast networks.
  4. 4. Investigate unicast routing support for multicast tree formation with reverse path forwarding.
  5. 5. Experiment on feedback traffic control algorithms for multicast-based applications.
  6. 6. Investigate reliable multicast transport protocols based on the concept of Application Layer Framing.
  7. 7. Design and implement management and control protocols for multicast- based applications. 8. Integrate resource management and multicast forwarding.
  8. 9. Investigate the impacts of Mobility, Multimedia and Multicast traffic

    9. RECENT_ACCOMPLISHMENT

    While we have had recent accomplishments in this area, they have not been carried out under the current task which has not yet started..

    FY-96_PLAN

    1. 1. Core placement and management

      CBT and PIM require a core-based multicast tree structure. At the present, cores are placed "by hand" based on the topology and group membership distribution. Automatic core placement and management is an important research issue that has not been solved. The problem is known to be complex. We will develop efficient heuristic algorithms for common case multicast styles and from the knowledge of the traffic distribution. We will also look into the issues such as core selection, placement, set-up and error recovery.

    2. 2. Quality of Service (QoS) support in multicast routing.

      Traditional routing metrics such as delay and hop-count are inadequate for the new applications which often have stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements. For a network to support diverse QoS requirements, it is necessary for routing to have a more complex model of the network, for example, characterised with multiple metrics such as bandwidth, delay and loss probability, and to be able to find paths that satisfy specific application QoS requirements. We will investigate QoS support in multicast routing based on our early work on the complexity of QoS routing.

    3. 3. Security issues for multicast networks.

      Security issues in multicast networks are of extremely importance as multicast communication is at a substantial increased risk from specific security threats, compared with the same threats in unicast. Since multicast involves one-to-many communications, a single node may affect the whole network. A few incidents on the experimental MBone has shown that an innocent mistake may cause the flooding of the whole MBone. We will first try to identify the specific threat either malicious and non- malicious, and investigate protection mechanisms based on both preventative and detective approaches.

    4. 4. Unicast routing support for multicast tree formation.

      Multicast algorithm such as DVMRP and PIM use the reverse path of unicast routing to build the multicast tree. However, current unicast routing does not support reverse path calculation. Ad-hoc mechanisms have been used to bypass this problem (e.g., a built-in unicast routing protocol in current implementation of DVMRP, and the PATH message in RSVP). In the future, the problem must be addressed in unicast routing. We will investigate mechanisms for integrating and supporting both forward-path and reverse-path forwarding in a unified path calculation.

    TECHNOLOGY_TRANSITION

    In fact several router vendors have already started using some of our CBQ code in their routers, and others plan to do so in the very near future. However, since this project has not yet started, it seems premature to fill in this section

    Anticipated start 15 Jan 1995

    Expected_end_date 30 June 1998

    CURRENT_CONTRACT_FUNDING_PROFILE_BY_YEAR

    FY94  Base   0
FY95  Base   $77281
FY96  Base   $
FY97  Base   $
TOTAL Base $479625

    OPTION_LIST

    FY96  Option1  210 000
FY97  Option2  181 984
TOTAL Option 391 984

    EXPENDITURES_BY_FISCAL_QUARTER

    Base Effort                       Required       In-hand        Needed
Funding for 7/95-9/95           0		0             0
Funding for 10/95-12/95       0		0             0 
CY95 Base                            0 		0             0

Funding for 1/96 - 3/96	43771		0	43771
Funding for 4/96 - 6/96	43771		0	43771
Funding for 7/96 - 9/96	52525		0	52525
Funding for 10/96 - 12/96	52525		0	52525
CY96 Base			192592	0	192592

    DATE_OF_ADMINISTRATIVE_DATA

    2/1/96

    ANYTHING_ELSE_YOU_NEED

    The project requires the current 768 Kbps link between the UK and the US which is co-funded by ARPA and the UK MoD and UKERNA; It would be desirable to increase the bandwidth of this link to at least T1 (1.544 Mbps), and possibly higher to allow a full participation in DARTNET-II. It would be ideal if this link could be upgraded in some way to nearer DS-3 to allow proper use of ATM.