Multicast Vs. Unicast

[nunzeo]

Does anyone have experience with unicasting computer images on a LAN. We have a Gigabit backbone and plan on imaging our desktop environment but was worried that brining down 25 images in one session using the unicast method would bog down the network. Multicast does not work properly for some reason but unicast works flawlessly. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[BuckWeet]

You have to setup IGMP and PIM to make the multicast function.. Also make sure you set the TTL on the multicast to something high.. If you set it too low it might cause the switches/routers to software switch it.


BuckWeet

 

[nunzeo]

Buckweet, We have IGMP and PIM setup. It works most of the time, but there are times when the clients connected to the master drop off and reboot themselves; the master will keep running.

I'm guessing the TTL is setup on the multicast session, or on the switches and routers?

 

[BuckWeet]

TTL is on the multicast session..

how are your interfaces setup? sparse or dense mode?

 

[nunzeo]

dense mode. i read that sparse is more complex??

 

[voltron1011]

Subscribing.

 

[BuckWeet]

I wonder if its dense flooding it and IGMP messages are being missed so it prunes it back..

Sparse mode isn't hard to setup.. You just need to enable sparse and setup auto-rp..

 

[nunzeo]

it turned out that it was our 3rd party imaging application that was causing the problem. even after i spent an hour on the phone with them they could not help, so i tried a few things myself and now it works. unicast mode worked fine which is why i did not think it was their application. i thought maybe the sessions could not keep up because of something on our network not configured properly which would cause it to die, but it was the app all along.

thanks for your help.