Scalable multimedia communication using IP Multicast and lightweight sessions

This survey describes the roots of IP Multicast, the evolution of the Internet Multicast Backbone, or Mbone, and the technologies that have risen around the Mbone to support large-scale Internet-based multimedia conferencing. The author explains the technical rationale for design decisions that underlay the Mbone tools, describes the evolution of this work from early prototypes into Internet standards, and outlines the open challenges that remain and must be overcome to realize a ubiquitous multicast infrastructure