Unicast Versus Multicast in Networking: A Comprehensive Overview
Understand the differences between unicast and multicast, including pros and cons, bandwidth requirements, scalability, and network implications. Learn how to enable multicast and optimize your network infrastructure.
Unicast Versus Multicast in Networking: A Comprehensive Overview
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Presentation Transcript
Multicast Overview Webcast Joshua Ferguson Cisco Systems, Inc. Advanced Services josfergu@cisco.com
Unicast Versus Multicast Unicast • Pros: • Less Configuration • Less hardware limitations • Cons: • More Bandwidth Required. Can be • calculated as (number of streams * • bandwidth of stream in kbps) • Server must be able to scale to • handle the number of connections.
Unicast Versus Multicast Multicast • Pros: • Less bandwidth is required, the • net effect on the network is one • traffic stream. • Server’s can easily scale to • support multiple broadcasts • Cons: • Network must be multicast • enabled. • Hardware must support multicast, • switches should support IGMP • snooping in hardware. 239.10.10.10
Inter-Agency Streaming Video • In order to perform Inter-Agency Video streaming the stream will need to be delivered to the Agency VRF as a Unicast. There are several reasons for this; • Difficulty with Multicast through Firewalls • Overlapping Group Addresses and Multicast Domains • The solution is to deliver a single unicast stream into the customer VRF and then use a media server to take that stream and multicast to the agency.
Inter-Agency Streaming Video DIS Video Server SGN Agency VRF Agency VRF Unicast Multicast
Overview of Enabling Multicast • Enable “ip multicast-routing” on all of the multicast routers. • Enable PIM on the LAN and WAN Interfaces. • Configure an RP, preferably Auto-RP, on one or more core devices. • Contact DIS NCC to multicast enable your VRF.