[ssm] Session Relaying in SSM: architectural aspects

Hello all,

within the premises of my PhD work I am studying multi-source 
functionality over SSM.

Pertaining to supporting multiple sources within a single SSM session by 
using a session relay,
the related bibliography (at least to my knowledge) agrees to placing 
the relay service at the application
layer (due to many advantages not listed herein).

Now, assuming an application-layer relay service, the possibilities for 
placing the relays are two:

a) At group members
b)"Inside" the network, using dedicated "proxies" (like Zappala proposed 
in [1]).

Assuming that one does not want to go for a) (for instance because the 
worst case delay is twice as high
as the worst case delay when using SPTs as proved in Holbrook's thesis), 
the goal of my email is to ask, whether
there is any insight/consensus on how the architectural model will look 
like for the b) option.

Queries are for example of the type:

1) Who is going to provide the proxy (relay) service? Is it the ISP for 
all SSM groups or does any application provider
(like a gaming company or a videoconferencing company) have to develop 
its own service. Or just have a dedicated
provider for the service (e.g. like Akamai).

2) How many of the benefits of SSM are lost (e.g. source filtering), if 
one goes for the relaying solution.

Think of it as searching an answer to the question: "how good can the 
relay solution get without sacrificing the deployment
benefits of the SSM model (whatever the latter is supposed to mean)".

I would greatly appreciate any inputs, related work hints etc.

Thanks,
Kostas.

[1] Daniel Zappala, and Aaron Fabbri, Using SSM Proxies to Provide 
Efficient Multiple-Source Multicast Delivery 
<http://faculty.cs.byu.edu/%7Ezappala/pubs/ssm-gis01.pdf>. IEEE 
Globecom, Sixth Global Internet Symposium, Volume 3, pages 1590-1594, 
November 2001.

_______________________________________________
ssm mailing list
ssm@ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ssm