Modeling and Analyzing the Instantaneous Stability for Application Layer Multicast

Both IP multicast and application layer multicast (ALM) are always using tree structure as data delivery path, but the adaptiveness to the dynamic behaviors of member nodes in ALM trees is weaker than that of IP multicast trees. In ALM tree, when a parent node leaves or fails, all its descendent nodes must adjust their positions in the ALM tree, which causes the interruption of multicast data transmission seriously. This phenomenon is called stability problem of ALM trees. Firstly, this paper analyzes the stability problem of ALM trees and proposes the instantaneous stability degree model (ISDM). Secondly, an approach that takes advantage of the statistical properties of memberpsilas join-leave behaviors is proposed to estimate the Leave Probabilities of member nodes for the model. Thirdly, the various factors related to the instantaneous stability of ALM trees are analyzed through simulations. The modeling and analyzing the instantaneous stability of ALM trees have established a theoretical basis for constructing stable ALM trees, and therefore some possible directions for the future work are discussed finally.