Chapter 25 Configuring Ip Multicast Switching; In This Chapter - Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9900 Series Network Configuration Manual

25 Configuring IP Multicast
IP Multicast Switching is a one-to-many communication technique employed by emerging applications,
such as video distribution, news feeds, conferencing, netcasting, and resource discovery (OSPF, RIP2, and
BOOTP). Unlike unicast, which sends one packet per destination, multicast sends one packet to all devices
in any subnetwork that has at least one device requesting the multicast traffic. Multicast switching also
requires much less bandwidth than unicast techniques and broadcast techniques, since the source hosts
only send one data stream to the ports on which destination hosts that request it are attached.
Destination hosts signal their intent to receive a specific IP multicast stream by sending a request to do so
to a nearby switch by using Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP). This is referred to as IGMP
Snooping. Destination hosts signal their intent to receive a specific IPv6 multicast stream by sending a
request to do so to a nearby switch by using Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) protocol. This is referred
to as MLD Snooping. The switch then learns on which ports multicast group subscribers are attached and
can intelligently deliver traffic only to the respective ports. The OmniSwitch implementation of IGMP
Snooping is called IP Multicast Switching (IPMS) and MLD snooping is called IP Multicast Switching
version 6 (IPMSv6). IPMS/IPMSv6 allows switches to efficiently deliver multicast traffic in hardware at
wire speed.

In This Chapter

This chapter describes the basic components of IPMS and how to configure them through the Command
Line Interface (CLI). CLI commands are used in the configuration examples; for more details about the
syntax of commands, see the OmniSwitch AOS Release 8 CLI Reference Guide.
This chapter includes the following topics:
•
"IPMS Default Values" on page
•
"IPMSv6 Default Values" on page
•
"IPMS Overview" on page
•
"Interaction With Other Features" on page 25-7.
•
"Configuring IPMS on a Switch" on page 25-9.
•
"Modifying IPMS Parameters" on page
•
"IPMS Application Example" on page
•
"Displaying IPMS Configurations and Statistics" on page 25-46
•
"IPMSv6 Overview" on page 25-25
•
"Configuring IPMSv6 on a Switch" on page 25-27
OmniSwitch AOS Release 8 Network Configuration Guide
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December 2017
Switching
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