When to Use Multicast vs. Unicast

ID: Q165015

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SUMMARY

This article discusses when you should use Multicast vs. Unicast.


MORE INFORMATION

Who is your audience? Internet or intranet? If you are multicasting, it gives you a very low consistent amount of bandwidth used, and all points between the client and server must be enabled for multicast.

NOTE: All of the routers between the two must be multicast enabled, or you can do UNIX tunneling to get around non-multicast enabled routers.

Overall, the Internet is not quite ready to support multicast traffic. Therefore, multicasting is currently more suited for an intranet. It does work well on a controlled intranet to reduce the amount of bandwidth you use for NetShow streams.

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Version           : 2.00
Platform          : WINDOWS 
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Last Reviewed: June 23, 1999