Building power optimal Multicast Trees
draft-mjsraman-rtgwg-pim-power-02

Abstract

Power consumption in multicast replication operations is an area of concern and choosing suitable replication points that can decrease power consumption overall assumes importance. Multicast replication capacity is an attribute of every line card of major routers and multi-layer switches that support multicast in the core of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or an enterprise network. Currently multicast replication points on Point-to-Multipoint Multicast Distribution trees consume power while delivering multiple output streams of data from a given input stream. The multicast distribution trees are constructed without any regard for a proper placement of the replication points and consequent optimal power consumption at these points. This results in overloading certain routers while under-utilizing others. An optimal usage of these replication resources could reduce power consumption on these routers bringing power consumption to optimality. In this paper, we propose a mechanism by which Multicast Distribution Trees are constructed for carrying multicast traffic across multiple routers within a given network. We propose that these Multicast Distribution Trees be built by using the information pertaining to power-replication capacity ratio available with fine grained components such as multicast capable line-cards of routers and multi-layer switches deployed within a network.

Authors

Shankar Raman
Balaji Venkat Venkataswami
Gaurav Raina
Vasan Srini

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