Multiflow: Multicast clean-slate with anticipated route calculation on OpenFlow programmable networks

Abstract

Increasingly popular, Internet applications for multimedia broadcasting require multipoint communication, in order to reduce network traffic rates. However, the widespread adoption of traditional multicast protocols is still held back by the current Internet structure, where the responsibility for management of multicast groups is distributed among network devices. By using distributed algorithms, such protocols generate delays in processing control groups events. In this paper we propose a clean-slate approach for multimedia multicasting, where the end to end calculation of the best route is performed to decrease delays in group configuration. The prototype developed implements this approach using OpenFlow technology. Results obtained through experimentation show a performance gain in relation to traditional IP multicasting.

Key words: Multicast, SDN, OpenFlow.