Protection switching for Carrier Ethernet multicast

This paper addresses network survivability for IPTV multicast transport in Carrier Ethernet networks. The impact of link failures is investigated and suggestions for intelligent multicast resilience schemes are proposed. In particular, functions of the multicast tree are integrated with the Carrier Ethernet transport layer, thereby optimizing the protection path with regards to delay and Quality of Experience (QoE). The proposed schemes are evaluated both through simulations and testbed experiments. Results clearly show the benefit of the integrated multicast scheme and illustrate a trade-off between recovery path length, recovery time, number of branch nodes and operational complexity. The integrated approach therefore shows significant potential to increase the QoE for IPTV users in case of network failures and recovery actions.