Implementation of High Performance Overlay Multicast Packet Forwarding Engine On NetFPGA

High-quality multimedia on the Internet has attracted attention because of its wide application area. IP multicast has been proposed as a solution to use efficient network resources in these services. However, IP multicast has not been commonly used due to a number of practical issues such as security and management. As an alternative, an overlay multicast routing which is performed in upper protocol layers on legacy networks without changing hardware has been presented. Yet, the maximum data transmission capacity of the overlay multicast is not sufficient for real time transmission of multimedia data. In this paper, we have implemented an overlay multicast engine on NetFPGA which allows us to perform packet replication and tunneling which need high-speed. In addition, we have implemented extra portions which need low-speed in software. From now on, we will progress research which increase the number of terminal spots which can be replicated by improvement and amplify throughputs by optimization.