A Comparative Analysis of Proposed Mobility Support Schemes for IP Multicast

This thesis introduces a novel mobile multicast transmission mechanism called Minimal Multicast Encapsulation. Additionally, this thesis analyzes the performance of mobility support schemes for IP multicast. Specifically, it compares the performance of combinations of two receive mechanisms and two transmit mechanisms. The receive mechanisms are the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) bi-directional tunneling mechanism and the IETF remote subscription mechanism. The transmit mechanisms are the IETF home tunneling mechanism and the Minimal Multicast Encapsulation. The performance analysis consists of examining path efficiencies, packet loss rates, and required mobility agent throughputs for each of the four possible combinations of the aforementioned transmit and receive mechanisms. Results of the analysis indicate that combinations that include bi-directional tunneling or home tunneling suffer from average path lengths at least 2 times the optimal path length. The combination of bi-directional tunneling and home tunneling has average path lengths that are 3 to 5 times optimal. The combination of remote subscription and Minimal Multicast Encapsulation provided optimal path lengths. Bi-directional tunneling suffered from roughly 10 times more degraded link changes due to packet loss than remote subscription. Maximum throughput requirements were 20 times greater for bi-directional tunneling than the maximum throughput requirements for remote subscription