Internet2 Multicast Working Group Charter

Mission

The working group's goal is to direct the design and implementation of a deployment strategy to provide a consistent and ubiquitous multicast service within the Internet2 community and between Internet2 and other network infrastructures.

Specific Goals

• CONSISTENCY AND UBIQUITY: Multicast must be a top tier Internet2 service in the backbone and among all Internet2 connection points.
  • To support this goal there must be an established set of Best Common Practices that all Internet2 affiliates should adhere to when deploying multicast.
  • To support this goal resources must be made available to both experts and novices offering assistance on deployment.
  • To support this goal there needs to be realtime status information available via the WWW.

• PROVIDING INTER-DOMAIN MULTICAST: Internet2 must provide support for multicast through an efficient, scalable inter-domain architecture.
  • To support this goal, as multicast evolves, Internet2 must support the best alternative for inter-domain routing.
  • To support this goal, maintenance of the multicast infrastructure, particularly the backbones, is critical to a robust, dependable service.

• PROVIDING SUPPORT FOR MULTICAST APPLICATIONS: Internet2 must support any manner of multicast-based application.
  • To support this goal, the working goal must work with other working groups to explore new applications and to explore how existing applications can be adapted to take advantage of multicast.
  • To support this goal, the working group must establish a WWW site tracking the current set of multicast-based applications in use.