Multicast flow accounting

摘要

A methods of implementing event based distributed multicast flow accounting are presented. Multicast-enabled routers request, and aggregate traffic flow measurement information from downstream multicast-enabled routers participating in dependent multicast sub-trees. Records are kept by the multicast-enabled router regarding changes to the underlying multicast tree topology. The aggregate traffic flow measurements and topology information are reported to multicast-enabled routers upstream. Advantages are derived from the ability to accurately compute multicast content transport costs within a communications service provider's network.