A Minimum-Cost Resilient Tree-Based VPLS for Digital TV Broadcast Services

This paper introduces an IPTV broadcast network architecture for digital multimedia distribution in a scalable, cost efficient, and reliable manner. The architecture presents a managed solution for broadcasting digital television, where its minimum-cost (Steiner) tree structure ensures significant bandwidth savings in the core, and its intelligent IGMP snooping aggregation and access nodes provide fast channel zapping, subscriber authorization, and channel profiling. We propose a system for providing resilient multimedia broadcasting services over the tree-based VPLS (TVPLS) network. In particular, we propose a solution that balances the IPTV traffic load over disjoint Steiner trees with split horizon and dual connectivity at the provide edge (PE) routers. A network management system (NMS) calculates disjoint minimum cost trees using the Steiner algorithm. Destination provider edge routers in the VPLS network are connected to the disjoint trees so that they can be serviced by either tree in the case of a fault. Each of the disjoint trees is provisioned with enough bandwidth to carry all of the services provided by the VPLS network. Under normal operation, however, the services are distributed evenly over the trees. In the event of a fault, the services on the faulty tree are switched to the other tree by the NMS using static Internet group management protocol (IGMP) route entries