Design and Evaluation of Area Limited Multicast with OpenFlow

Abstract:  This paper presents a new method for sending messages toward hosts in a specific area. Our key idea is employing OpenFlow network to locate the destination routers based on such information as latitude, longitude, and the number of the floors. The method enables to determine the area with high precision, because of the information defined on each OpenFlow switch. The method also contributes to reduce the unnecessary packets, since it sends packets to only hosts that connected to the OpenFlow switches in the limited area. This paper describes the design and implementation of our proposed method with Trema and Open vSwitch, verifies its function, evaluates performance, and describes the results of the verification and evaluation. Finally, this paper shows the use cases of our idea by showing earthquake early warning and public-address system.

Keywords: component; Geocast, Multicast, OpenFlow