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System and method for hierarchical multicast routing in ATM networks

  • US 5,831,975 A
  • Filed: 04/04/1996
  • Issued: 11/03/1998
  • Est. Priority Date: 04/04/1996
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. A method for multicasting cells in a communications network, said communications network including a plurality of nodes coupled to one another by links, said method comprising the steps of:

  • dividing said communications network into a hierarchical arrangement of peer groups including logical peer groups representative of a collection of nodes at a lower level of said hierarchical arrangement, wherein a peer group includes at least one of said nodes therein;

    building a multicast tree for a multicast group of nodes in said network which includes all participant nodes involved in a multicast, wherein a participant node is either a sender or receiver of data for said multicast group, said step of building including the steps of;

    selecting core nodes for each of said peer groups within said multicast group, wherein a node wanting to become part of said multicast group must register with a core node in its peer group;

    flooding core node identity information locally within each of said peer groups including said logical peer groups, wherein said nodes of a peer group need only maintain said identity information about said core nodes of direct ancestor peer groups; and

    selecting a peer group leader for each of said peer groups in said network for aggregating topology information of nodes in said peer group and flooding said topology information in higher level peer groups, said peer group leader flooding collected topology information from higher level peer groups into lower level peer groups, said collected topology information including a list of logical core nodes of ancestor peer groups for each said multicast group, wherein said peer group leader may be a different node than said core node in a peer group,wherein said cells are able to be efficiently multicast by way of said multicast tree to said nodes in said multicast group.

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