Autonomous Multicast Reflectors over Active Networks

We present a reflector service that seeks to maintain application-level connectivity in the presence of network-level multicast failures. The service is based on the dynamic deployment of autonomous reflectors based on mobile code, on top of an active network infrastructure. It is able to repair multicast tree failures by building a self-organising tree of reflectors, which will be connected to each other via unicast. We focus on the basic decision mechanisms related to code mobility during the tree construction and destruction phases, namely: cloning, migration, merging and termination. To assist with the decisions a market-based mechanism is employed. We show some preliminary simulation results that confirm the viability of the approach and settle directions for further research.