A hierarchically distributed network management architecture for GMPLS-based IP multicasting

GMPLS is one of the key technologies for multicast services that send high-volume stream contents over an IP network at a low cost. However, it is likely that in the near future there will be an enormous amount of GMPLS network-related data to be managed. Moreover, because a GMPLS network has multilayer domains, one critical issue is achieving separate layer-based operations. In order to solve these problems, we propose a hierarchically distributed network management architecture in which we can flexibly allocate a GMPLS subnetwork to each operations support system (OSS). Our architecture can reduce the burden on all the OSS because of its distribution and can separate layer-based operations on the basis of each GMPLS subnetwork. Constraint-based routing is one of the key policies for managing GMPLS domains. Our architecture enables constraint-based explicit routing in a domain and across domains depending on the policies. We also propose effective operations that add or remove leaf endpoints on the multicasting tree in this hierarchically distributed architecture, and show the effectiveness of the operations in a simulated environment.