A framework for routing and congestion control in multicast networks

We propose a new multicast routing and scheduling algorithm called multipurpose multicast routing and scheduling algorithm (MMRS). The routing policy load balances amongst various possible routes between the source and the destinations, basing its decisions on the message queue lengths at the source node. The scheduling amongst various sessions sharing links is devised such that the flow of a session depends on the congestion of the next hop links. MMRS is throughput optimal and computationally simple. It can be implemented in a distributed, asynchronous manner. It has several parameters which can be suitably modified to control the end to end delay, packet loss in a topology specific manner. These parameters can be adjusted to offer limited priorities to some desired sessions. MMRS is expected to play a significant role in end to end congestion control in the multicast scenario.