Performance optimization of media distribution in overlay networks using OpenFlow

Throughout the last decade, overlay multicast is a hot issue for media distribution services. High bandwidth consumption and multi-source multicasting in widely distributed networks is a critical issue for a wide range of applications including video conferencing, multi-party games, content distribution etc. A number of research projects have explored to use multicast as an efficient and scalable mechanism to deal with group oriented communications. However, there are still some limitations, such as long latency, duplicated packet transmission at certain points and lack of network equipment functionality support. With the appearance of Software Defined Networking, represented by OpenFlow devices, network control and management becomes possible to remote administrators. With the support of OpenFlow, it is possible to do some optimizations of existing media distribution mechanisms in overlay networks. In this paper, we proposed a novel method to improve the traditional overlay multicast relay networks with available limited number of OpenFlow devices, to cut down the bandwidth expenditures and perform a good control and management of media distribution services.