HOMS: An Internet Media Distribution System Based on Overlay Multicast

A novel Internet media distribution system based on overlay multicast was studied and implemented. In the system, the nodes build the multicast route with a tree-first strategy and maintain the topology with an active strategy. In order to run the routing and topology algorithm effectively, a series of messages and protocols are designed as the core in the system. The implementation of the multicast system is object-oriented and modular. The experiments on Planet Lab in which the end hosts are all over the world have shown that, the system can construct and maintain the overlay multicast tree efficiently, and can also distribute the real-time streaming audio with high scalability.