Dynamic distributed overlay networking of IP multicast

Mastering of overlay networking is one of the fundamental challenges in the distributed computing and peer-to-peer arena. The IP (Internet protocol) is used to create a common overlay network on top of many existing networks using other transport protocols to suite their physical requirements. A technique known as tunneling, where the payload of an IP data packet carries another full IP packet including its header information, is an overlay networking method for creating a VPN (virtual private network) on top of the existing Internet or IP based network. A number of protocols are used on the Internet today are HTTP, SSL, TCP, UDP etc. Tunnels can be created using these protocols to passively enable overlay networking in the IP environment. An approach will be presented for generically creating IP multicast overlay networks in a fully distributed environment. This brings several advantages: a) nodes can be dynamically meshed together resulting in load balancing of the network traffic and the creation of a Web on top of the Web, b) multicast can now be communicated from any node to any multiple selection of neighboring nodes, c) in a distributed environment overlay networks can be constructed with no single point of failure, which is an important step towards fully fault tolerant distributed software infrastructure, d) the application developer is equipped with a communications middleware that permits the establishment of a true VPN without the need to configure additional network infrastructure, e) a turn-key solution for empowering the end-user to establish an overlay network without compromising the network administrator or service provider. The approach realized is applicable to broadband, narrowband, mobile and static environments. Finally some user case studies for applying this technology will be presented.