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Networking Advanced

What is Multicast?

A network communication method that sends data to multiple recipients simultaneously without duplicating packets for each recipient.

Multicast sends one packet that is replicated by the network to reach all interested receivers, unlike unicast (one-to-one) which requires separate packets per recipient. This is efficient for streaming media, stock market feeds, and software updates.

Multicast uses special IP ranges (224.0.0.0–239.255.255.255) and IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) for group membership. While efficient, multicast is complex to configure and not well supported across the public internet — mostly used in enterprise LANs and ISP networks.

Related Terms

HTTP Keep-Alive
An HTTP mechanism that reuses a single TCP connection for multiple requests, reducing the overhead of establishing new connections.
VLAN (Virtual LAN)
A logical grouping of network devices that creates separate broadcast domains on the same physical network infrastructure.
ARP (Address Resolution Protocol)
A protocol that maps IP addresses to physical MAC addresses on a local network segment.
ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol)
A network protocol used for diagnostic and error reporting, including ping and traceroute functionality.
Network Segmentation
The practice of dividing a network into isolated segments to improve security, performance, and management.
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)
A protocol for monitoring and managing network devices like routers, switches, servers, and printers remotely.
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