Chapter 9. Multicast—What the Post Office Can't Do

What You Will Learn

After reading this chapter, you should be able to

  • Explain the Class D or multicast address space

  • Understand the concepts, terminology, and operation of Cisco IP multicast routing protocols (Protocol Independent Multicast[PIM] dense and sparse modes)

  • Comprehend the basics of configuring multicast on Cisco routers

If you want to send a greeting card, a wedding invitation, a birth announcement, or your favorite joke to all of your friends and family, you need to address and send a card for each recipient. A more convenient way would be to send one card and have the post office make a copy for each recipient. But the post office cannot do this because they use only unicast addresses—an ...

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