Placement of proxy-based multicast overlays

Proxy-based multicast is an approach to implementing the multicast function with proxy servers, which has many advantages compared to the IP multicast. When proxy locations are predetermined, many routing algorithms can be used to build a multicast overlay network. On the other hand, the problem of where to place proxies has not been extensively studied yet. A study on the placement problem for proxy-based multicast is presented in this paper. The objectives of proxy placement can be minimization of delay time, minimization of bandwidth consumption, or minimization of both. These performance metrics are studied in this paper and a number of algorithms are proposed for multicast proxy placement. Performance study is presented and practical issues of proxy placement are also discussed.