Patent ID: 6633579
Filing Date: 2003-10-14
Classification: H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
A system for multicasting comprising:a network comprising nodes and links connecting the nodes; and a mechanism for forming multicast connections which do not have overlapping branches between the nodes, the forming mechanism forms multicast connections which do not have overlapping branches as parties are added or deleted from the multicast connections, each connection has an associated root node of the nodes of the network and the root node includes the forming mechanism, the forming mechanism stores and maintains at the root node all information about each connection necessary to insure that each connection forms multicast connections which do not have overlapping branches as parties are added or deleted from the connections, a connection defines a path of nodes, links and leaves and wherein the forming mechanism includes a path selection mechanism for selecting a path for the connection, each node in the connection has a memory and wherein the information about the connection includes the links, nodes and leaves of the path as represented by a tree graph stored in electrical form in the memory, the leaves and nodes of the path for a connection across a single PNNI peer group define a DTL and when a leaf is added all the links used in the DTL that are not already on the tree graph are added to the tree graph and the leaf is added to the last link added to the tree graph.