System and method for controlling multicasting service

Abstract

In a system and method for guaranteeing quality of service (QoS) of a multicasting service, when a multicasting source or a receiving terminal is newly registered, or a router or the receiving terminal leaves an existing multicasting group, a topology and a resource state of a network is retrieved, and a determination is made as to whether to provide a new multicasting service based on the retrieved network resource state. Thus, multicasting-based high-quality multimedia service can be provided to users.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete appreciation of the invention, and many of the attendant advantages thereof, will be readily apparent as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference symbols indicate the same or similar components, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the operation of a multicasting network using PIM-SM;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a multicasting network including a multicasting service QoS controller according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the internal structure of a multicasting service QoS controller according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4A is a block diagram of a multicasting network when a resource does not exist on a path from a source to a rendezvous point;

FIG. 4B is a flowchart of a method for controlling a multicasting service which is applied in the case of FIG. 4A according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5A is a block diagram of a multicasting network when a link having a resource and a link having no resource exist on a shared tree;

FIG. 5B is a flowchart of a method for controlling a multicasting service which is applied in the case of FIG. 5A according to another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6A is a block diagram of a multicasting network when an input/output interface of a rendezvous point is switched from a prune state to a forward state;

FIG. 6B is a flowchart of a method for controlling a multicasting service which is applied in the case of FIG. 6A according to another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7A is a block diagram of a multicasting network when an input/output interface of a rendezvous point is switched from a forward state to a prune state;

FIG. 7B is a flowchart of a method for controlling a multicasting service which is applied in the case of FIG. 7A according to another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 8A is a block diagram of a multicasting network when a shared tree for a multicasting group is not formed on a rendezvous point;

FIG. 8B is a flowchart of a method for controlling a multicasting service which is applied in the case of FIG. 8A according to another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 9A is a block diagram of a multicasting network when a shared tree for a multicasting group is formed on a rendezvous point; and

FIG. 9B is a flowchart of a method for controlling a multicasting service which is applied in the case of FIG. 9A according to another embodiment of the present invention.

Claims

1. A multicasting service network, comprising: at least one receiving terminal for receiving a multicasting service;at least one router for relaying a multicasting service packet from a multicasting source to said at least one receiving terminal; anda multicasting service QoS controller for collecting network resource states of said at least one router so as to recognize spare network resources, and for determining whether said at least one router receives a multicasting packet from a new multicasting source or transmits the multicasting packet to a new receiving terminal.

2. The network according to claim 1, wherein the multicasting service network transmits the multicasting packet using at least one of Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP), Multicast Open Shortest Path First (MOSPF), Core Based Tree (CBT), Protocol Independent Multicast-Dense Mode (PIM-DM), and Protocol Independent Multicast-Sparse Mode (PIM-SM).

3. The network according to claim 1, wherein the network resources comprise at least one of bandwidth, delay time, and delay variance information.

4. The network according to claim 1, wherein the multicasting service QoS controller compares resources needed for new multicasting packet transmission and reception to spare network resources, and controls a router having insufficient spare network resources to drop the new multimedia packet.

5. The network according to claim 1, wherein the multicasting service QoS controller classifies the multicasting services according to at least one class and allocates, to each said at least one class, maximum network resources which is a maximum amount of available network resources.

6. The network according to claim 5, wherein the multicasting service QoS controller decreases the maximum network resources allocated to a class having spare network resources, and increases the maximum network resources allocated to a class to which the new multicasting packet belongs when there are insufficient spare resources for new multicasting packet transmission and reception.

7. The network according to claim 1, wherein the multicasting service QoS controller controls said at least one router to drop the multicasting packet, said at least one router comprising an input/output interface having a multicasting packet transmission state comprising a prune state.

8. The network according to claim 1, wherein the multicasting service QoS controller re-collects the network resource state when at least one event of registering or leaving of the receiving terminal for multicasting service, switching of a multicasting packet transmission state of an input/output interface of a router, and lapse or expiration of a predetermined update time occur.

9. A multicasting service QoS controller system, comprising: a router connection module for communicating with at least one router;a topology/resource manager module for collecting network resources of said at least one router using the router connection module to recognize spare network resources; anda call admission control manager module for receiving the spare network resources from the topology/resource manager module, and for determining whether said at least one router I receives a multicasting packet from a new multicasting source or transmits the multicasting packet to a new receiving terminal.

10. The system according to claim 9, further comprising: a policy manager module for managing a network operation policy according to the network resource state; anda policy deploy module for converting and delivering the network operation policy as instructions in a language that can be interpreted by said at least one router.

11. The system according to claim 9, wherein the network resources comprise at least one of inter-router bandwidth, delay time, and delay variance information.

12. The system according to claim 9, wherein the topology/resource manager module comprises a resource management table, and the resource management table stores at least one of router identification (ID), interface ID, total bandwidth, multicasting class, class bandwidth, total used bandwidth, and unused bandwidth information.

13. A method for controlling a multicasting service, said method comprising the steps of: collecting network resource information from at least one router to recognize spare network resources of each said at least one router;requesting, by one of a new multicasting receiving terminal and a new multicasting source, one of said at least one router to provide the multicasting service; anddetermining whether said at least one router receives a multicasting packet from the new multicasting source using the spare network resources or transmits the multicasting packet to the new receiving terminal.

14. The method according to 13, wherein the step of collecting the network resources comprises the step of collecting at least one of inter-router bandwidth, inter-router delay time, and inter-router delay variance information.

15. The method according to 13, further comprising the step of comparing resources needed to transmit and receive the new multicasting packet to spare network resources, and allowing a router having insufficient spare network resources to drop the new multimedia packet.

16. The method according to 13, further comprising the step of classifying multicasting services according to at least one class and allocating maximum network resources to each said at least one class.

17. The method according to claim 16, further comprising the step of decreasing the maximum network resources allocated to a class having spare network resources and increasing the maximum network resources allocated to a class to which a new multicasting packet belongs when there are insufficient spare resources for new multicasting packet transmission and reception.

18. The method according to claim 13, further comprising the step of controlling said at least one router to drop a multicasting packet, said at least one router comprising an input/output interface having a multicasting packet transmission state comprising a prune state.

19. The method according to claim 13, further comprising the step of controlling to re-collect network resource states of said at least one router when at least one event of registering or leaving of a receiving terminal for multicasting service, switching of a multicasting packet transmission state of an input/output interface of a router, and lapse or expiration of a predetermined update time occur.

20. A method for controlling a multicasting service using a Protocol Independent Multicast-Sparse Mode (PIM-SM), said method comprising the steps of: requesting, by a new multicasting source, an arbitrary router to provide a multicasting service;collecting unused bandwidth information of a link between said arbitrary router and a rendezvous point; andwhen the unused bandwidth of the link is smaller than a bandwidth needed to use a new multicasting service, controlling said arbitrary router not to receive a multicasting packet from the new multicasting source.