The multicast address allocation problem: theory and practice

In this paper, we perform the first comprehensive study of the multicast address allocation problem. We analyze this problem both within its context as a classic resource allocation problem and with respect to its practical use for multicast address assignment. We define a framework for the problem, introduce complexity results, and formulate several new allocation algorithms. Despite the theoretical superiority of these algorithms, our performance evaluation demonstrates that a common, prefix-based algorithm is better under a range of workloads. We conclude by illustrating the conditions under which dynamic address allocation should be used and provide insight into how to further improve the performance of prefix-based allocation.