Chapter 1. Introduction to IP Multicast
There are three data communication methods in IP networks: unicast, broadcast, and multicast. To establish a baseline, it is important to understand the fundamental elements of unicast and broadcast before we explore the details of multicast communication methods.
Unicast communication at Layer 3 (the Network layer) of the Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model is based on the IP address of the destination device. Routers learn about routes by static or dynamic methods and forward traffic by looking at the destination IP address. Layer 2 (the Data Link layer) uses another mechanism to establish communication between devices using media access control (MAC) addresses.
Take a look at Figure 1-1. The sender ...
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