Two heuristics for multicasting in ATM networks

This paper deals with multicasting in ATM networks. An overlaid network is proposed, that includes the ATM switches that provide the required signaling and information replication capabilities. These switches are interconnected by means of point-point Virtual Paths and run a hop-limited point-point routing scheme to configure the point-multipoint connections. The hop-limit constraint is embedded in the two considered multicasting algorithms, designed for operation in directed graphs. One algorithm modifies the well known KMB heuristic, originally developed for undirected graphs and now able to operate on directed graphs with the hop limit constraint. The other one modifies the Dijkstra algorithm, by adopting a cost function that considers the link capacity instead of its length. The performance of the two heuristics are quite close under many different operating conditions, but the modified Dijkstra has a lower algorithmic complexity.