Название: IP Multicast Routing Protocols: Concepts and Designs
Автор: James Aweya
Издательство: CRC Press
Год: 2024
Страниц: 483
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf (true)
Размер: 10.1 MB

This book discusses the fundamental concepts that are essential to understanding IP multicast communication. The material covers the well‑known IP multicast routing protocols, along with the rationale behind each protocol. The book starts with the basic building blocks of multicast communications and networks, then progresses into the common multicast group management methods used, and finally into the various, well‑known multicast routing protocols used in today’s networks. IP multicast provides significant benefits to network operators by allowing the delivery of information to multiple receivers simultaneously with less network bandwidth consumption than using unicast transmission. Applications that can benefit greatly from multicast communications and multicast‑enabled networks include audio and video conferencing, collaborative computing, online group learning and training, multimedia broadcasting, multi‑participant online gaming, and stock market trading.

This book’s goal is to present the main concepts and applications, allowing readers to develop a better understanding of IP multicast communication. IP Multicast Routing Protocols: Concepts and Designs presents material from a practicing engineer’s perspective, linking theory and fundamental concepts to common industry practices and real‑world examples.

The three fundamental forms of IP communication are unicast, broadcast, and multicast. A unicast transmission, achieved by placing an IP unicast address in the destination address field of the packet, involves sending a packet to a single destination, typically directed at a single host interface. A broadcast transmission, on the other hand, utilizes an IP broadcast address in the destination address field, disseminating a packet to all hosts within an entire IP subnetwork (subnet) or virtual local area network (VLAN), encompassing all devices within a single broadcast domain. By contrast, a multicast transmission employs an IP multicast address in the destination address field, sending a packet to a set of hosts that have become members of a multicast group. The group is identified by the IP multicast group address, and the member hosts may span different subnets or VLANs within the internetwork.

• Unicast: Involves one‑to‑one transmission, where data flows from one source to a specific destination in any part of the internetwork.

• Broadcast: Encompasses one‑to‑all transmission, where data travels from a single source within a specific network segment (such as an IP subnet or VLAN) to all possible destinations reachable solely within that network segment.

• Multicast: Entails one‑to‑many transmissions, originating from one source to multiple destinations throughout the internetwork. These destinations explicitly express interest in receiving traffic from the source. The collection of hosts receiving identical streams of multicast packets from the same multicast source is called a multicast group, and the multicast group address serves as the destination address of such packets.

The discussion is presented in a simple style to make it comprehensible and appealing to undergraduate‑ and graduate‑level students, research and practicing engineers, scientists, IT personnel, and network engineers. It is geared toward readers who want to understand the concepts and theory of IP multicast routing protocols, yet want these to be tied to clearly illustrated and close‑to‑real‑world example systems and networks.