Multicast networks allow us to optimize and deduplicate network traffic that is sent from one or more sources to multiple destinations simultaneously. Different than unicast traffic where all packets come from one IP address and go to another IP address (one to one), multicast traffic is sent from one or more IP address and they have multiple destinations (one or many to many), that need to subscribe to the multicast group (aka channel) on the uplink router that will copy the traffic and send it to multiple interfaces simultaneously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast
These networks are critical and are used in different sectors. For example, media companies use multicast networks to stream live videos to multiple locations and then broadcast this live feed locally. Another example are financial services companies where they send stock exchange data in real time to brokers around the globe allowing them to do their job with the minimum delay possible. Any downtime or performance issue on any of these networks might have a terrible impact on those companies, costing them from thousands to millions of dollars.
IBM SevOne NPM, and its ability to monitor all the network data, can monitor the multicast network and troubleshoot any performance issue such as RP (Rendezvous Point) status, status of the multicast groups, amount of multicast traffic going through the network or type of traffic sent using multicast. On top of this, with SevOne’s ability to detect anomalies and to visually correlate data, SevOne will proactively detect performance issues by filtering all the noise and help network operations teams to pinpoint the real source of the problem, helping them to become faster, more efficient and to reduce or even avoid downtime.
This is a video of some of the capabilities of multicast monitoring with SevOne: https://youtu.be/mskW0JFXZa8