Heterogeneous multicasting based on RSVP and QoS filters

Today we are faced with an increasing variety of networks and end systems. The resulting heterogeneous environment imposes new challenges on communication support for multimedia and collaborative applications. Heterogeneous group communication is a key issue for the proper support of such applications. The approach outlined in this paper forms a first step towards an active multicasting network (AMnet) that is capable to provide flexible, scalable and efficient support for heterogeneous group communication. RSVP is used as a signalling protocol and QoS filters form the active components in the networks nodes. They scale the QoS down to the individual requirements of subgroups or single members within a heterogeneous group communication. Therefore, they remove information (e.g., color information) from continuous media streams, such as video streams. The basic architecture and concept as well as a prototype implementation and some measurements are presented.