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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

ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol)
A network protocol used for diagnostic and error reporting, including ping and traceroute functionality.
OSI Model
The seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection model that standardizes network communication functions from physical transmission to application protocols.
Load Balancer
A device or software that distributes network traffic across multiple servers to ensure reliability and performance.
Token Bucket Algorithm
A rate limiting algorithm that allows burst traffic by accumulating tokens at a fixed rate and consuming them per request.
SDN (Software-Defined Networking)
An approach that separates the network control plane from the data plane, enabling centralized, programmable network management.
IP Address
A unique numerical label assigned to each device on a computer network for identification and communication.
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