Core Selection Algorithms for Group Communications

Multipoint communication is the delivery of the data stream from a number of sources to a receiver set meeting the QoS-requirements of the application. Core-based approach in multipoint communication extends the solution domain for efficiency of the solutions and reduced maintenance overhead potentially across autonomous domains. Placement of the cores in the domain is crucial for the performance of group communication protocols. In this paper, we review the core selection algorithms in the literature and analyze these algorithms for their performance and computational complexities. We present SPAN, a distributed, QoS-constrained algorithm for core selection. SPAN processes in a broader solution space and improves the cost efficiency of the solutions compared to its counterparts in the literature.