Scalable Anycast System based on OSPF

Anycast is a communication service in which an anycast message agent finds the nearest anycast server in a group of recipients. The nearest server is not always the best member of the group. However, no standard routing protocol for anycast systems exists. This paper presents a novel scalable anycast system scheme based on the open shortest path first (OSPF) routing protocol (Coltun et al., 1999). The proposed scheme comprises two algorithms, which manage the anycast system members and the Internet routes, respectively. This proposed multi-path anycast routing scheme, which applies the alternative area border router (ABR) to provide a scalable system in hierarchical networks (Coltun et al., 1999).