  Multicast data delivery can significantly reduce traffic in operators'
networks, but has been limited in deployment due to concerns such as the
scalability of state management. This paper shows how multicast can be
implemented in contemporary software defined networking (SDN) switches, with
less state than existing unicast switching strategies, by utilising a Bloom
Filter (BF) based switching technique. Furthermore, the proposed mechanism uses
only proactive rule insertion, and thus, is not limited by congestion or delay
incurred by reactive controller-aided rule insertion. We compare our solution
against common switching mechanisms such as layer-2 switching and MPLS in
realistic network topologies by modelling the TCAM state sizes in SDN switches.
The results demonstrate that our approach has significantly smaller state size
compared to existing mechanisms and thus is a multicast switching solution for
next generation networks.
