Communication via computer networks has been growing rapidly. Technology ha
s gained momentum. Industry, international organizations, and businesses ha
ve started relying on networks to provide reliable, supportive, fast and ea
sy methods to maintain transactions between their branches. Issues such as
bandwidth, scalability, and efficiency became pertinent parameters that had
to be configured at all costs. Also, information needs to be sent from one
site to several sites. All of this is happening on packet switched network
s. With the introduction of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), the speed and
quality of service of networks have increased tremendously. Still, the nec
essity of sending one information to several sites instantaneously has been
unresolved. This research paper broadens this perspective, and introduces
a new architecture for the future that will enable multicast routers to rou
te packets with the same guaranteed service of ATM. The proposed architectu
re consists of ATM network and provides the standard multicast routing capa
bilities to a router. This paper also reviews the current state of multicas
t protocols, highlights the missing features, motivates the design, and dev
elops the enhanced multicast protocols. A new architecture is based upon a
hybrid system of distributed databases and a centralized server. Simulation
and results of the proposed architecture are also described in detail. (C)
2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.