ALMSock

Abstract

Due to the deployment problem of the IP Multicast service, the Application Layer Multicast has appeared as an alternative of the IP Multicast. However, even though plenty of the Application Layer Multicast (ALM) Protocols were designed and their applications were developed according to the diverse requirements of each multicast service, researches on the ALM Protocols are focused on only a protocol design or an efficient multicast group management algorithm. And there is little effort to provide a unified guideline for development of the ALM Protocols and provide an environment for running multiple protocols simultaneously in a system. In this thesis, we propose socket APIs to be a reference in developing a new ALM Protocols enabling a system to support multiple protocols in a system with other Application Layer Multicast Protocols.