Merging Source and Shared Trees Multicast in MPLS Networks

Multicast and MPLS are two complementary technologies. Merging MPLS and multicast technologies can acquire two advantages: multicast saving bandwidth and MPLS supporting high-speed, QoS and traffic engineering, VPN. Implementation of MPLS multicast has two key expectations: how to construct multicast tree over MPLS domain and how to enhance multicast scalability. In this paper, we design a scalable MPLS multicast algorithm. The algorithm uses tunneling technology and branching nodes technology, which can merge source and shared trees multicast in MPLS networks. Using tunneling technology to implement multipoint-to-multipoint (MP2MP) shared-tree multicast can solve one of the difficulties of MPLS multicast: MP2MP label distribution. Using branching nodes technology can reduce multicast forwarding state in routers and enhance multicast scalability. We also evaluate our proposal in terms of scalability and efficiency and present some simulation results based on NS-2