A QoS management platform for multicast environments

The paper discusses an integrated network management platform for multicast environment, IPME, which is designed to address some of the current research issues. The IPME platform mainly consists of three components; manager, agents and participants. Their functions are defined, as well as the relationship among the components. Within the framework of the IPME platform, a QoS management platform, IPME-QoS, is added to accommodate real time multicast applications. The architecture of the QoS management platform is described, together with QoS establishment procedure and QoS management policies. In order to validate the proposed QoS management platform, a multicasting based VOD system is studied and evaluated.