Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP

Priyam De

Tathagata Nandy

Chethan Chavadibagilu Radhakrishnabhat

Anil Raj

Thomas Samuel

One aspect can provide a system and method for tunnel-based multicasting. During operation, a source-side designated router (DR) coupled to a source device of a multicast group can broadcast a service-advertisement packet and receive a response packet from a client-side DR coupled to one or more client devices within the multicast group. The source-side DR can determine an address of the client-side DR based on the received response packet and establish a hardware-based communication tunnel between the source-side DR and the client-side DR using the address of the client-side DR. Establishing the hardware-based communication tunnel can include using hardware logic units to encapsulate multicast data packets originating from the source device. The source-side DR can further send, over the hardware-based communication tunnel, multicast data packets originating from the source device to the client-side DR, which forwards the multicast data packets to the client devices within the multicast group.

Hardware offload of multicast control plane functions

A system for efficient multicast control packet forwarding is provided. During operation, the system can maintain a first tunnel between a first switch and a second switch in an overlay tunnel fabric. The encapsulation of a packet sent via the overlay tunnel fabric is initiated and terminated within the overlay tunnel fabric. The system can maintain a second tunnel between the first switch and a third switch, which can be in an external network that excludes the first and second switches. The switch can distinguish the first and second tunnels as intra-fabric and inter-fabric tunnels, respectively. Upon receiving a multicast control packet via the first tunnel, the system can identify the second tunnel as the inter-fabric tunnel and forward the multicast control packet via the second tunnel. Here, a respective multicast control packet received from the first tunnel can be precluded from being forwarded on intra-fabric tunnels.

Efficient multicast packet forwarding in a distributed tunnel fabric

One aspect of the instant application facilitates reduction of multicast group join latency. During operation, the system can receive, at a network device, a first multicast group leave packet corresponding to a first multicast group. In response to receiving a first multicast group leave packet from an IPTV client, the system can simulate a second multicast group join on behalf of the IPTV client by updating, based on a predictive model, at least an entry in a table maintained in hardware with a next likely multicast group that the IPTV client is likely to join; and sending a simulated second multicast group join packet for initiating an IPTV stream associated with the next likely multicast group. In response to receiving an actual second multicast group join packet from the IPTV client, the system can facilitate the IPTV stream to the IPTV client, thereby reducing multicast group join latency.

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Bengaluru, India

Priyam De