Core Migration for Dynamic Multicast Routing

EEcient multicast communication provides one of the best avenues for scaling bandwidth intensive applications. Current multicast routing mechanisms perform well for multicast groups which reach a long-term, steady-state distribution of membership. However, when the membership migrates throughout the network, current routing techniques may perform poorly. One type of multicast routing technique involves selection of a \core" router through which all multicast communication is routed. We propose to adapt this routing scheme to eeciently support dynamic groups, by allowing the core to migrate. As part of our work we provide solutions to several problems that are more general, including estimating multicast bandwidth using unicast information and soliciting responses from a limited number of participants to avoid message implosion.