Multicast routing algorithms and protocols: a tutorial

Multicasting is the ability of a communication network to accept a single message from an application and to deliver copies of the message to multiple recipients at different locations. There has been an explosion of research literature on multicast communication. This work presents a tutorial-cum-survey of the various multicast routing algorithms and their relationship with multicast routing protocols for packet-switched-wide-area networks. Our contribution should be of particular benefit to the generic networking audience (and, to a lesser extent, to the expert on this subject).