Design and evaluation of a MARS model implementation

Currently, the IETF standard for IP-ATM multicast address resolution is the Multicast Address Resolution Server (MARS). The MARS solution supports multicast either through "multicast meshes" of overlaid point-to-multipoint connections (VCMesh approach) or through Multicast Servers (MCS approach). Related work shows the performance of a multicast server implementation supporting just one layer-3 group and adopting an experimental UNI 3.x signalling stack. This paper describes the design and the implementation of the MARS architecture supporting multiple groups with the standard UNI 3.1 signalling protocol. Preliminary experimental tests evaluate the MARS scalability with a larger LIS and contrast the performance of the MCS approach against VCMesh supporting multiple groups.