A Common API for Transparent Hybrid Multicast
draft-irtf-samrg-common-api-08
SAM Research Group M. Waehlisch
Internet-Draft link-lab & FU Berlin
Intended status: Experimental T. C. Schmidt
Expires: October 29, 2013 HAW Hamburg
S. Venaas
cisco Systems
April 27, 2013
A Common API for Transparent Hybrid Multicast
draft-irtf-samrg-common-api-08
Abstract
Group communication services exist in a large variety of flavors and
technical implementations at different protocol layers. Multicast
data distribution is most efficiently performed on the lowest
available layer, but a heterogeneous deployment status of multicast
technologies throughout the Internet requires an adaptive service
binding at runtime. Today, it is difficult to write an application
that runs everywhere and at the same time makes use of the most
efficient multicast service available in the network. Facing
robustness requirements, developers are frequently forced to use a
stable, upper layer protocol provided by the application itself.
This document describes a common multicast API that is suitable for
transparent communication in underlay and overlay, and grants access
to the different multicast flavors. It proposes an abstract naming
by multicast URIs and discusses mapping mechanisms between different
namespaces and distribution technologies. Additionally, this
document describes the application of this API for building gateways
that interconnect current multicast domains throughout the Internet.
It reports on an implementation of the programming interface,
including a service middleware. This document is a product of the
Scalable Adaptive Multicast (SAM) Research Group.
Status of This Memo
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Waehlisch, et al. Expires October 29, 2013 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft Common Mcast API April 2013
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Use Cases for the Common API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2. Illustrative Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2.1. Support of Multiple Underlying Technologies . . . . . 6
1.2.2. Support of Multi-Resolution Multicast . . . . . . . . 8
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1. Objectives and Reference Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2. Group Communication API and Protocol Stack . . . . . . . 11
3.3. Naming and Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.4. Namespaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.4.1. Generic Namespaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.4.2. Application-centric Namespaces . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.5. Name-to-Address Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.5.1. Canonical Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.5.2. Mapping at End Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.5.3. Mapping at Inter-domain Multicast Gateways . . . . . 16
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