DEPLOYMENT OF NATIVE IP MULTICAST ROUTING SERVICES ON THE ITALIAN ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK

In 1993 the GARR (Italian Academic and Research Network) was connected to MBONE (worldwide IP multicast enabled network backbone). Since then, and especially in the last few years, this network has been used to test and develop new IP multicast routing protocols and applications. However it was a tunnel-based solution, not suitable for taking advantage of the new potential of IP multicast nor for use by a large community. This paper describes the work done for a migration to a native IP multicast routing deployment, highlighting the solutions adopted when dealing with the implementation problems and the complex wide area network management. The aim of this work is also to ensure a native IP multicast connection with the other Research Networks and the rest of Internet.