Various communication systems may benefit from appropriate representations of communication parameters and information. For example, certain wireless communication systems may benefit from packet number representation for multicast channel block error rate reporting. A method can include determining a number of packets corresponding to a block error rate of a multicast channel. The method can also include encoding the number of packets using an encoding format that includes a plurality of granularities and at least one threshold. The method can further include transmitting the number of packets in a report.

A comprehensive system for capturing multicast messaging traffic volume and performance metrics across a global inventory of hosts. A single instance of the data capturing and extraction tool may be configured to be implemented across an enterprise's entire inventory of multicast messaging-configured hosts. The data capturing and extraction tool dynamically extracts multicast group addresses and corresponding metrics during the scanning of the captured traffic volume and performance data, thus eliminating the need for manual input of specified multicast group addresses. As a result, presentation of metrics on a per multicast group address basis is made possible for all multicast group addresses extracted during the scanning process. In addition, an efficient means for polling the hosts for traffic volume and performance data is realized by only polling those non-primary and workstation hosts that are currently transmitting or receiving multicast messages.

In one embodiment, a method includes computing at a controller, a primary path and a backup path for transmittal of multicast data from service nodes in communication with the controller and a multicast source to access nodes in communication with multicast receivers, and transmitting from the controller, information for the primary path and the backup path to the access nodes for use by the access nodes in receiving the multicast data on the primary path and the backup path, and switching transmittal of the multicast data to the multicast receivers from the primary path to the backup path upon identifying a failure in the primary path to provide fast reroute at the access nodes. A multicast control plane runs in the controller without operating in the access nodes. An apparatus is also disclosed herein.

Techniques are described for providing robust control plane asserts in a network using Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) or other routing protocols for controlling delivery of multicast traffic. In one example, a router includes a control unit having a hardware-based processor executing a Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) protocol. The control unit, when executing the PIM protocol, initiates an election process for selecting, from a plurality of routers, a forwarding router to forward multicast traffic to a shared media computer network. In addition, the control unit determines whether the multicast traffic has been received by the router and outputs, in association with the election process, a PIM assert message that includes an indication as to whether the router has successfully received the multicast traffic.

Techniques are described for enhancements to Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) to enable a last hop router (LHR) to perform source discovery and directly build or join a source tree. According to the techniques of this disclosure, the LHR builds a communication channel with a rendezvous point (RP) router and requests source information for at least one multicast group for which the LHR has interested receivers. The RP responds to the request by looking into a register database maintained by the RP and sending source information indicating at least one source that is actively providing traffic for the at least one multicast group. Based on the response, the LHR initiates a (S,G) PIM Join message toward the at least one source for the at least one multicast group to directly build or join at least one source tree.

In one embodiment, a multicast communication is received at a particular node of a plurality of nodes receiving the multicast communication in a network. The particular node selects a subset of subcarriers using a probabilistic data structure, such that each of the plurality of nodes selects a respective subset of subcarriers using the probabilistic data structure. The particular node transmits an acknowledgement of receipt of the multicast communication on the subset of subcarriers selected by the particular node. The transmission occurs simultaneously with transmissions of acknowledgements from the other of the plurality of nodes.

A network device receives multi-destination packets from a first node and forwards at least a first of the multi-destination packets to another network device using a first multi-destination tree with respect to the network device. The network device detects that a link associated with the first multi-destination tree satisfies one or more criteria and, in response to detecting that the link satisfies the one or more criteria, selects a second multi-destination tree with respect to the network device. The network device forwards at least a second of the multi-destination packets to the other network device using the second multi-destination tree.

In accordance with an embodiment, described herein is a system and method for automatic migration of poller proxy services in a service bus environment. A singleton service framework component keeps a poller singleton application running on any of the managed servers in the cluster. The poller singleton application is registered with a cluster change listener, which listens for any state change in the cluster. Each poller proxy service is homogeneously deployed on each managed server in the cluster, and is associated with a poller engine configured to run on a particular managed server. When a managed server fails, the poller singleton application can migrate each poller engine configured to run on the failed managed server, to a running managed server, based on a preferred server list of the poller proxy service associated with that poller engine.

A system and method for selecting packets to be forwarded from redundant multicast streams. A primary multicast stream and a secondary multicast stream are received, wherein the primary multicast stream and the secondary multicast stream are redundant multicast streams received over disjoint multicast forwarding paths. A hardware-based analyzer in a forwarding plane of the network device is applied to detect when a quality of one of the primary multicast stream or the secondary multicast stream has fallen below a threshold. In response to detecting that a quality of one of the primary multicast stream or the secondary multicast stream has fallen below a threshold, selecting, via a thread executing in a forwarding component of the network device, a different one of the primary multicast stream or the secondary multicast stream having a quality that meets the threshold, wherein selecting includes dynamically rewriting next hop operations associated with the selected stream. Packets received on the selected one of the primary multicast stream or the secondary multicast stream are forwarded and packets of the multicast stream received on the other one of the primary multicast stream or the secondary multicast stream for which the quality has fallen below the threshold are discarded.

A multiple multicast network system and method for ensuring reliability in such a network are provided. A multiple multicast method in a multiple multicast network system may include grouping terminals having data to be transmitted to each other in a group. The method transmits, by each of the terminals in the group, data of each of the terminals to the other terminals in the group. In response to receiving the data, the method provides, to the terminals in the group, as feedback, missing packet information, and generates, by a terminal among the terminals in the group, a secondary network-coded packet by performing network coding based on a successfully received packet and data of each of the terminal, and transmits the secondary network-coded packet to the other terminals in the group based on the missing packet information.