An introduction to IP multicast traffic engineering

In this paper, we discuss the use of IP traffic engineering (TE) capabilities for the deployment and the maintenance of multicast distribution trees along paths that will comply with specific quality of service (QoS) requirements, expressed by parameters like the loss rate or the interpacket delay variation. Such parameters aim at reflecting the level of quality associated to the. provisioning of services that can naturally benefit from the IP multicast transmission scheme, such as TV/radio broadcasting or videoconferencing. The deployment of these services over the Internet is therefore conditioned by the provider's capacity to allocate the appropriate resources accordingly. We propose a generic framework for the enforcement of QoS-based multicast traffic engineering policies, within the context of services that rely upon a "one-to-many" group communication scheme. This approach includes the use of enhanced multicast-enabled routers currently under development. We also introduce a discussion on the dynamic provisioning of the QoS requirements that will depict the expected level of quality associated with the deployment of IP multicast-based services.