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OmniSwitch 6600 Family Network Configuration Guide April 2006 page 26-1
26 Configuring IP Multicast
Switching
IP Multicast Switching is a one-to-many communication technique employed by emerging applications
such as video distribution, news feeds, conferencing, netcasting, and resource discovery (OSPF, RIP2,
BOOTP). Unlike unicast, which sends one packet per destination, multicast sends one packet to all devices
in any subnetwork that has at least one device requesting the multicast traffic. Multicast switching also
requires much less bandwidth than unicast techniques and broadcast techniques since the source hosts only
send one data stream to the ports on which destination hosts that request it are attached.
Destination hosts signal their intent to receive a specific multicast stream by sending a request to do so to a
nearby switch using Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP). The switch then learns on which ports
multicast group subscribers are attached and can intelligently deliver traffic only to the respective ports.
This mechanism is often referred to as IGMP snooping (or IGMP gleaning). Alcatel’s implementation of
IGMP snooping is called IP Multicast Switching (IPMS). IPMS allows OmniSwitch 6600 Family switches
to efficiently deliver multicast traffic in hardware at wire speed.
In This Chapter
This chapter describes the basic components of IPMS and how to configure them through the Command
Line Interface (CLI). CLI commands are used in the configuration examples; for more details about the
syntax of commands, see the OmniSwitch CLI Reference Guide.
Configuration procedures described in this chapter include:
• Enabling and disabling IPMS on page 26-5.
• Configuring and removing a static neighbor on page 26-5.
• Configuring and removing a static querier on page 26-6.
• Modifying IPMS parameters beginning on page 26-8.
Note. You can also configure and monitor IPMS with WebView, Alcatel’s embedded web-based device
management application. WebView is an interactive and easy-to-use GUI that can be launched from
OmniVista or a web browser. Please refer to WebView’s online documentation for more information on
configuring and monitoring IPMS with WebView.