All things related to multicast

[Bruce Curtis <>]

On Oct 11, 2005, at 6:40 PM, Richard Mavrogeanes wrote:

> I think the unicast rollover described in the attached has value  
> and that it can address the issue of dependable service to drive  
> the bandwidth consumption that multicast can ultimately solve.  I  
> can see the ISP and/or IT staff saying "we've got to do something  
> about all these idential packets going to 1,000 users", and I  
> wonder if rollover with multicast bias is at least "an" answer.

  My memory may be going but it seems to me that this is the way the  
Microsoft Video player worked, at least a year or two ago, I  
distinctly remember reading about it and trying it out on a stream.  
(Perhaps a stream from an i2 meeting?).  But since then I worked with  
the Anthropology department here when they were looking at using a  
Microsoft server to serve a multicast stream.  At that time although  
it was listed as having he capability it was unclear on how to  
configure a Microsoft server to source multicast.  In this particular  
example the local department was partnering with the Research Channel  
and wanted to source multicast only, we don't currently have the  
bandwidth to source lots of unicast copies of this stream.  But I  
agree that in many cases it is desirable to have the user's client  
try multicast first and then fall back to unicast.
  I have also helped another local department set up multicast for  
streams on a Real server and I believe that is the way the Real  
client worked also, it would fail over to unicast if the multicast  
stream was unavailable,  again a couple of years ago.

  I just sent email to another University in our state suggesting  
that they looking to multicasting some content they stream on some  
weekends, ideally a slightly higher bandwidth and higher quality  
stream via multicast and have it fall back to the regular speed  
unicast that they can support with their bandwidth.

  At a conference hosted here yesterday one of the Keynote speakers  
was from XM Satellite and he mentioned that some of their content  
will now be available via AOL and at least one other web radio site.   
I agree that it might take less convincing to get content like that  
multicast if the content providers can be shown that it is  
transparent to the end users (with an automatic fall back to unicast)

---
Bruce Curtis                         

Certified NetAnalyst II                701-231-8527
North Dakota State University