All things related to multicast

[Chris Wilkinson <>]

Lenny, 

Thank you for your message!

As I've mentioned before, I agree it is really unfortunate that we were not 
able to honor the best-practice of "make-before-break" in this case. It 
simply was not possible with our available resources and project schedule; 
other services had to be prioritized and even those have proven to be 
challenging on the bleeding-edge of network development. 

We have another 3-4 weeks of intense transition actives and then we can start 
to move some resources back to other topics areas, which might very well 
include the potential testbed for multicast support. For the moment, I simply 
have to keep our resources laser-focused on dealing with our transitions for 
L2 and L3 core services. We're also hitting platform bugs on a nearly-daily 
basis, which also adversely impacts my manpower for non-core-related programs.

You and the WG are doing the right thing - continuing to elaborate develop 
your use cases, citing specific applications, and requesting that a testbed 
or overlay be added as soon as possible. This helps Internet2 determine where 
to put resources, both short term and long term. I realize this doesn't 
answer your direct question about when multicast might be restored. I can't 
provide that answer at this time. 

Thanks again,

Chris Wilkinson
Director of Network Architecture and Planning, Internet2
734.352.4962
 

On 10/20/21, 1:40 PM, " on behalf of 
Leonard Giuliano" < on behalf of 
> wrote:

    Folks,

    On the last Mcast WG call on 9/28, we discussed a proposed Multicast 
    Overlay solution and there seemed to be strong consensus to recommend it 
    going forward. Perhaps I didn't appreciate the swiftness of the migration 
    from old network to new or maybe I just wasn't paying close attention to 
    the timelines, but I kind of assumed this would be somewhat of a 
    make-before-break approach and the new solution would be in place before 
    the old network was dismantled.

    In any event, we are now seeing the disconnecting of the multicast 
    connectivity that was supporting some active applications. Specifically, 
    the Multicast Menu (https://multicastmenu.herokuapp.com/) which listed 
and 
    launched access to all the multicast content on I2 and GEANT, as well as 
    plans for new multicast-based distance learning/educational content 
stream 
    from a member (Thomas Jefferson HS) are now unavailable. The suggestion 
    from the NOC to "implement GRE tunnels or transition their applications 
to 
    Layer 2 multipoint VPLS/EVPN" is not a viable option for interdomain apps 
    designed to be globally available to the full R&E community.

    In any event, now that the old multicast-enabled network is no longer 
    available, how soon could we get the new Mcast Overlay solution in place?


    Thanks,
    Lenny