Multicast - Example Use Cases
Multicast is a useful technology that is ideal for network traffic that has a single source and multiple destinations. Some of the most common uses for multicast include:
- Video Streaming/IPTV which delivers television content over an IP network rather than through traditional cable or satellite formats.
- For example: Audio and Video over IP Networks
- Videoconferencing with multiple participants, where your audio/video stream is sent to multiple participants of the VC
- Online Gaming, where online multiplayer games use multicast to send the same information (like game state updates) to many players at once.
- Software Distribution: Multicast can be used for the distribution of software updates to multiple systems at the same time, which can save significant bandwidth when compared to unicast distribution.
- Financial Trading: In financial markets, multicast is used to distribute price and trade information to multiple trading systems simultaneously.
- Network Protocols: Network protocols like OSPF, EIGRP, and RIP use multicast to distribute routing information to all routers in a network.
- Various voice services including Music on Hold (MoH) and audio announcements, and 3-way calling will typically use multicast.
Links:
https://forum.networklessons.com/t/introduction-to-multicast/1325/35?u=lagapidis
https://networklessons.com/multicast/introduction-to-multicast/