Facilitating improved reliability of internet group management protocol through the use of acknowledge messages

A method for facilitating acknowledgment of a request for altering a multicast group membership status, comprising:

• receiving an Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Membership Report message, wherein the IGMP Membership Report message is transmitted from a requesting system and requests membership in a particular multicast group for receiving designated multicast information;
• confirming an ability to implement membership of the requesting system in the particular multicast group;
• preparing a first affirmative acknowledge message after confirming the ability to implement membership of the requesting system in the particular multi cast group, wherein preparing the first affirmative acknowledge message includes:
• specifying acknowledge message in a type field of a first IGMP message;
• specifying an identifier of the particular multicast group in a multicast group identifier field of the first IGMP message;
• and
• specifying an affirmative acknowledgement in an acknowledgment type field of the first IGMP message, the affirmative acknowledgement designating the ability to implement membership of the requesting system in the particular multicast group;
• transmitting the first affirmative acknowledge message for reception by the requesting system;
• receiving an IGMP Leave Group message from the requesting system after transmitting the first affirmative acknowledge message, wherein the IGMP Leave Group message requests removal of the requesting system from the particular multicast group;
• confirming an ability to implement removal of the requesting system from the particular multicast group;
• and
• preparing a second affirmative acknowledge message after confirming the ability to implement removal of the requesting system from the particular multicast group, wherein preparing the second affirmative acknowledge message includes:
• specifying acknowledge message in a type field of a first IGMP message;
• specifying an identifier of the particular multicast group in a multicast group identifier field of the first IGMP message;
• and
• specifying an affirmative acknowledgement in an acknowledgment type field of the first IGMP message, the affirmative acknowledgement designating the ability to implement removal of the requesting system from the particular multicast group.

A data processor program product for facilitating acknowledgment of a request for altering a multicast group membership status, comprising:

• a data processor program processable by a data processor;
• an apparatus from which the data processor program is accessible by the data processor;
• and
• the data processor program being capable of enabling the data processor to facilitate:
• receiving an Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Membership Report message designating a request for altering a present membership status with respect to designated multicast information;
• determining a membership action associated with the IGMP Membership Report message;
• preparing a membership acknowledge message in response to determining the membership action, wherein the membership acknowledgment message designates a resulting membership status associated with the request for altering the present membership status;
• and
• transmitting the membership acknowledge message for reception by a requesting system.

A system for facilitating acknowledgment of a request for altering a multicast group membership status, comprising:

• a multicast-capable system including a data processor;
• and
• a data processor program accessible by the data processor of the multicast-capable system;
• the data processor program being capable of enabling the data processor of the multicast-capable system to facilitate:
• receiving an Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Membership Report message designating a request for altering a present membership status with respect to designated multi cast information;
• determining a membership action associated with the IGMP Membership Report message;
• preparing a membership acknowledge message in response to determining the membership action, wherein the membership acknowledgment message designates a resulting membership status associated with the request for altering the present member ship status;
• and
• transmitting the membership acknowledge message for reception by a requesting system.