Robust multicast membership management in the managed overlay multicast service

Currently new sophisticated services such as IPTV, conference communications, network gaming, etc. need group communication capability in the network. However, current Internet does not provide full deployment of multicast capability. Therefore, alternative solutions are needed to provide efficient group communications. One such solution is an overlay multicast mechanisms. Membership management is one of the key features of in management of group communications service. The tricky problem of membership management is due to membership churn. This paper proposes robust membership management function for the managed overlay multicast network. The proposed functions are multicast tree and membership management, periodic connection management, detection of abnormal termination, and detection of connection failure. Robust multicast service can be provided with the use of proposed management function.