Multicast and Quality
of Service
Internet Technologies and Applications
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Aims and Contents
• Aims
– Introduce the multicast and the benefits it offers
– Explain quality of service and basic techniques for
delivering QoS
• Contents
– Addressing and Delivery Mechanisms
– IP Multicast
– QoS
• Service Differentiation (DiffServ)
• Guaranteed QoS (IntServ)
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Addressing
and
Delivery Mechanisms
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Unicast
• One-to-one association between address and host
• The most common method of data delivery
• A host sends a packet to destination address X – the
packet should be delivered to X (and only X will process
the packet)
– IP unicast: IP datagram sent to 125.70.16.3 is
delivered only to the host with that address
– MAC unicast: frame sent to 00:17:31:5A:E5:89 is
processed only by the host with that address
• A host that receives a packet to which it is not
the unicast destination will discard that packet
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Broadcast
• One-to-many association between address and hosts
• Many = every host on the network
• Examples:
– IP network broadcast address (all 1’s in host portion): a
host with IP address 192.168.1.2/24 sends a datagram to
the network broadcast address 192.168.1.255/24. All other
hosts on the IP network will receive the datagram
– MAC broadcast address (all 1’s): a host with MAC
address 00:17:31:5A:E5:89 sends a frame to the
broadcast address FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF. All other
hosts on the network will receive the frame
• Applications:
– Distributing control/management information, e.g.
routing information, address requests
• Used by many routing protocols, DHCP, ARP, … 5
Multicast
• One-to-many association between address and hosts
• Many = selected group of hosts
• A more general form of broadcast, where only a selected set of the
hosts in the network receive the packet
• Requires management protocols for the hosts to “subscribe” or “join”
the multicast destination group (much more complex than
broadcast)
• Example:
– IP multicast: a set of hosts on the Internet “subscribe” to the
multicast group with address 225.70.8.20. When a host sends
a datagram to 225.70.8.20, the datagram is delivered to all
hosts subscribed to that multicast group
• Applications:
– Multimedia and collaborative applications that involve many
users
• Audio/video/TV streaming, presentations, video/audio
conferencing, shared document editing, .. 6
Anycast
• One-to-many association between address and hosts
• Many = any host in a group
• Similar to multicast, but a packet sent to an anycast
address is delivered to only one (any one) of the
subscribed hosts
• Applications:
– Used in advanced DNS implementations: there are
multiple, replicated copies of DNS servers in the
world; a DNS query will be sent to an anycast
address; anycast routing will deliver that query to
one of the replicated DNS servers
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Addressing and Delivery Mechanisms
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IP Multicast
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Multicast Example
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Multicasting vs Multiple Unicasting
• Multicasting
– A single packet is sent from
source
– Copies are made at multicast
router where necessary
• Multiple Unicasting
– Use unicast to “emulate”
multicast
– Source uses unicast to send a
copy of the same packet to
each destination
– Doesn’t require routers/hosts
to support multicast protocols
– Very inefficient
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IP Multicast Components
• IP Multicast is an optional feature of IP hosts and routers
– Most hosts and routers support multicast today, but many ISPs
have not enabled multicast
• When a group of computers want to communicate, they use a
single IP multicast address
– 32 bit IP addresses include a range for multicast addresses
• Routers must be notified as to which computers belong to
which multicast group
– Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) use to notify router
• Routers must be able to delivery multicast datagrams in the correct
direction
– Forwarding principles are more complex than IP unicast
forwarding
– Multicast routing protocols such as DVMRP (Destination vector
multicast routing protocols), PIM, MOSPF, PGM, …
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IP Multicast Addresses
• IP multicast addresses range from:
– 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255 (there are some special cases)
• A single IP multicast address identifies a destination group of computers
– Multicast address can only be a destination; never a source
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IGMP (Internet group management protocol)
• Any host can send a datagram to an IP multicast address
– (Although in practice, security policies at routers may prevent
this)
• The hosts registered with that address will receive the datagram
– Those hosts are in the same multicast group
• IGMP allows hosts to join and leave a group
– When a host wants to join a group it sends a IGMP Join
message to the group multicast address
– Local multicast routers receive the request and
propagate the information to other multicast routers in
the Internet that somebody is asking to add to the group.
– Local multicast routers periodically send messages to group
members to confirm if the hosts are still part of the group
• With multicast routers managing group membership, a source does
not need to know all members of the group 14
IP Multicast Forwarding and Routing
• When a host sends a datagram to a IP multicast address:
– Sent to local multicast router
• E.g. using Ethernet multicast or broadcast
– The local multicast router must forward to the appropriate next
router(s)
• Multicast routing protocol is used by multicast routers to determine the
next router(s) to reach all destination
– Several routing protocols in use: DVMRP, PIM, MOSPF, PGM, …
– Trees are used to define the least-cost path from a source to
all destinations in a group
– A multicast router may need to send a copy of a datagram to
multiple next routers
• IP Multicast forwarding and routing is much harder than unicast IP
– E.g. least-cost routes may change rapidly (as hosts join / leave
groups)
– E.g. multicast delivery is often unreliable (cannot send ACKs back) 15
Ensure the
Quality of Service (QoS)
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The Internet: Best Effort Service
• IP is connectionless protocol using packet switching
– IP provides unreliable delivery
– TCP adds reliability but still no guarantees on performance
• Some applications/users desire performance guarantees, e.g.
– A user watching IPTV requires 6Mb/s sustained throughput
– A VoIP call requires delay less than 100ms and jitter less
than 5ms
– A medical file transfer requires packet loss rate of less than
0.5%
– A business requires 2Mb/s minimum and 3Mb/s average
data rate
• How do we provide such guarantees in an IP network?
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Quality of Service (QoS)
• QoS refers to statistical performance guarantees that a
network system can make: Packet loss, delay, jitter,
throughput are common measures
• There are numerous QoS mechanisms available
• QoS is only an issue with network utilisation is high
• Hard QoS (or guaranteed QoS):
– Absolute performance guarantees
– A user requests 1Mb/s from a network operator,
then they will be guaranteed 1Mb/s
– Reserve resources for users; control the number
of users/traffic entering a network
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• Soft QoS (or service differentiation):
– Relative performance guarantees
– A user requests 1Mb/s from a network
operator; they will be delivered 1Mb/s when
possible, but not guaranteed
– Provide priority to users/traffic
• No QoS:
– All users/traffic treated the same; no guarantees
or prioritisation
Service Differentiation (Soft QoS)
➢ Give different priority to different types of traffic
in the network
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Service Differentiation (Soft QoS)
• May be applied at different levels of granularity (particles):
– Flow or Session level:
• My VoIP call gets higher priority than your FTP
download
– Class (or Aggregate of Flows) level:
• All VoIP calls get higher priority than all FTP downloads
• All voice traffic gets higher priority than non-voice traffic
• In the Internet, DiffServ is the name of an architecture that
provides service differentiation
– Applied on the Class level
– E.g. ISP treats all packets marked as voice with certain
priority
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Service Differentiation Example
• Simple network with two applications
– Assume the LANs are 100Mb/s
– The bottleneck link is router R1 to R2: 1.5Mb/s
• If sending rate of H1 and H2 exceeds 1.5Mb/s, then packet
delay and packet loss will occur at R1
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• Two applications:
– 1Mb/s video application: requires low delay and packet
loss
– FTP file transfer: no strict time constraints
In the queue of R1,
video packets are given
higher priority
than FTP packets
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Service Differentiation: Marking
• How can we give priority to video application?
– Queue at router R1 can treat audio packets with
priority
• Whenever an video packet arrives, it is sent, even
if there are FTP packets waiting in the queue
– Need Packet Marking: IP packets must be marked
such that routers can recognise the class of service
they should be allocated
• In IPv4, the ToS or DiffServ (DSCP) field in
the header
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Service Differentiation: Classification
• What if FTP application belongs to a “premium” user?
– User paid ISP more money for ftp than the video
user
– Now may want to give priority to FTP packets
• Packet Classification
– Classify packets based on some criteria
• Common criteria:
– Class (e.g. Control, Video, Voice, Data,
Background): DSCP (Differentiated Services
Code Point) in IP header
– Source/Destination address (identify the
user): IP addresses and port numbers 24
– Packets are marked by a source host or some
entry point into a network (e.g. ISP border router)
– Routers determine the priority to give packets
based on these markings
• Achieved using queuing schemes: FIFO,
Priority Queues, Round Robin,
• Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ), …
– The priority is a policy decision, e.g. made by ISP
• The full form of DSCP is Differentiated Services
Code Point. It's a 6-bit field in the IP header that
allows network devices to classify and manage
network traffic based on priority, contributing to
quality of service (QoS).
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Service Differentiation: Policing
• Assume the router knows it
should give priority to the
1Mb/s video application
• What if the video
application sends at a
higher rate than
agreed?
– Error in the host, or
malicious behavior
– Traffic Metering and
Policing is required
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• Traffic Metering and
Policing is required
– Routers measure the
characteristics of arriving
traffic
• Average rate, peak rate,
burst size
– If application traffic
exceeds some agreed
values, routers may drop or
delay packets
• Achieved using Leaky
Bucket
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Limitation of Service Differentiation
• Service differentiation on its own can deliver
guaranteed performance
– Two 1Mb/s video applications
– Both given equal (high) priority, but the full 1Mb/s cannot
be delivered to either
• Packet delays and loss will occur at R1
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Guaranteed (Hard) QoS
• Guarantee that user will have 1mb/s bandwidth
• Resource Reservation:
– Only way to guarantee that an application/user will
have sufficient resources to reserve the resources (e.g.
link bandwidth, queue space, processing time)
• Cannot over-reserve
– An application needs to be able to state the required
resources
– Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) is
standardised for the Internet
• Admission Control
– When application requests resources, the network
(routers) must make a decision to accept or reject
• Can only accept if sufficient resources to process the
traffic 29
• In the Internet, IntServ is the name of the architecture
that provides guaranteed QoS
– Applied at the flow level
– E.g. applications use RSVP to reserve resources
along a path in the Internet
Resource Reservation Example
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Soft vs Hard QoS
• Service Differentiation (including DiffServ)
– Relative priorities given the class of traffic
– Simpler to implement in large network
• Do not need complex signalling, routers only
prioritise amongst classes of traffic (not amongst
each individual application flow)
– No guaranteed QoS
• Guaranteed (Hard) QoS (including IntServ)
– Absolute performance guaranteed to application flows
– Same principles of traditional telephone networks
– Complex (RSVP, routers) and requires
applications to state their resource requirements
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• Today, neither approach is widely deployed across
entire Internet
– Some ISPs use these approaches within their
networks
– There are combinations and variations (MPLS,
traffic engineering)
– End users do not have access to QoS
mechanisms yet
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