MULTICAST COMMUNICATION RESOURCE MANAGEMENT APPARATUS AND METHODS

Multicast communication resource management apparatus and methods are disclosed. Multicast communication modules receive respective multicast communication traffic streams and provide transmit streams for transmission toward multicast destinations, and have a limited aggregate capacity to support multicast communications with the destinations. The aggregate capacity includes respective amounts of capacity reserved for each of the destinations and a remaining unreserved amount of capacity. The reserved amounts of capacity are usable for communication with the respective destinations. The unreserved amount of capacity is made available as a pool for allocation to a destination for which the respective reserved amount of capacity is insufficient. The destinations may then fairly contend for usage of additional capacity from the unreserved pool. Data structures for tracking reserved and unreserved capacity are also disclosed.