A Proposed IP Multicast Hardware-Routing Algorithm using Partitioned Lookup Table

In contrast to the one-to-one model of IP unicast, in which data packets are sent from a single source to a single recipient, IP multicast provides a method of efficient many-to-many communication. This concept is becoming increasingly important, both in the Internet and in private networks, for providing services such as multimedia content delivery. IP packet Forwarding based on Partitioned Look Up Table (IFPLUT) is an algorithm used to partition the Forwarding Table (FT) based on the egress port. IFPLUT focus only on a unicast routing (single-source, single-destination). We present in this works a modified IFPLUT hardware-based algorithm to support multicast routing. Moreover a hardware architecture design is proposed for the modified algorithm with a study to optimize the routing memory loss. Key-Words: Multicast, forwarding table, Internet Protocol, IP address, longest match