Hybrid Application Layer Multicast with Hierarchically Distributed Nodes

The hybrid application layer multicast (ALM) has been shown its efficiency by leveraging the conventionally main structures of application layer multicast, tree-based and mesh-based. However, how to select the proper node to construct the overlay and how to establish the connection between any two nodes are still unsolved. Therefore, this paper is to design a novel construction algorithm for the hybrid ALM to resolve the above two issues. Firstly, by carrying out the analysis of nodes´ characteristics, all nodes are divided into groups and a node priority is proposed to select the super node within each group. Secondly, by using the selected super node, all nodes are hierarchically controlled and different kinds of connections are carried out in the ALM, where the connection between super node and other nodes is set to be a tree to enhance the efficient utilization of network resource while the connection between other normal nodes is decided to be a mesh to reduce the overhead. Simulation results show that the proposal outperforms other conventional methods.