Software Defined Multicast Using Segment Routing in LEO Satellite Networks

The emerging low earth orbit (LEO) broadband satellite networks are creating new opportunities to enable superior video distribution. With numerous satellites deployed, broadband constellations are capable of distributing videos across the globe by efficient multicasting techniques. However, existing work only studied IP multicast for broadband constellations, which suffer from limited scalability and tree performance. With recent breakthroughs in software defined networking, novel software defined multicasting (SDM) techniques manage to achieve efficient data transfer through intelligent and granular management, outperforming traditional IP Multicast. This paper leverages software defined multicasting in the promising broadband constellations to empower satellite-based Internet video distribution. Based on rectilinear Steiner trees, this paper proposes a novel software defined multicasting framework for broadband satellite networks. In addition, this paper designs simple, agile, and scalable multicast segment routing protocols implementing source routing and equal cost multipath routing. The proposed protocols also adapt to frequent member updates and network failures with efficient tree recovery and local rerouting mechanisms. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach when compared with traditional algorithms.