Mode independent session directory service architecture: a unified approach for ASM and SSM multicast networks

In this paper we describe architectural changes incorporated into DNS aware Multicast Session Directory (mDNS) that enable it to co-exist in both Any Source Multicast (ASM) and Source Specific Multicast (SSM) environments. mDNS is a distributed, global, scalable and hierarchical approach that allows multicast sessions to be searched based on multiple parameters including keywords, session-type, geo-locality, etc. mDNS design being tightly coupled with existing Domain Name Service (DNS) enables sessions to be assigned a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that can be book-marked for future access. We also describe the caching strategy added to mDNS and present arguments on its possible benefits. Afterwards, we will discuss the slight search strategy alteration required by caching and its security implications. This paper also describes our simulation design. We describe how we automated our experiments. The integration of fully implemented mDNS software and our "simulated" network hierarchy will be explained. We provide simulation results and explain their significance with respect to network topography.