IMSS: IP Multicast Shortcut Service

In this paper we present imss: IP Multicast Shortcut Service for ATM networks. imss pursues the \short-cut" routing paradigm in order to exploit the underlying ATM QoS and native routing mechanisms in the optimal way. imss is built on top of congress (CONnection oriented Group-address RESolution Service). Congress is an eecient native ATM protocol for resolution and management of multicast group addresses in a large ATM cloud. Congress resolves multicast group addresses and maintains their membership for applications. It is not designed to handle the applications' data-exchange. An imss extension at a multicast router uses the group membership information that it receives from congress, in order to open ATM connections that bypass (\shortcut") the IP routing mechanism. In this work we deal primarily with the implementation of imss. congress' design, however, will also be provided due to the non-triviality of group address resolution and maintenance problems that it addresses.