IP Multicast over Fabric Connect in Protocol Independent Multicast networks

IP Multicast over Fabric Connect provides simplicity in provisioning and deploying IP multicast bridging and routing. Also, due to the fact that only one control plane protocol (IS-IS) exists, convergence times in the event of a network failure, are typically sub second.

IP Multicast over Fabric Connect

IP Multicast over Fabric Connect introduces extensions to the SPBM IS-IS control plane to exchange IP multicast stream advertisement and membership information. IP Multicast over Fabric Connect uses these extensions, along with the Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Snooping and Querier functions at the edge of the SPBM cloud, to create sub-trees of the VSN SPB for each multicast group to transport IP multicast data.

With IP Multicast over Fabric Connect, the switch supports the following:

Important

Important

Sources must be IGMP enabled to support discovery functions specific to the multicast applications in use.

IP Multicast over Fabric Connect Restrictions

You encounter these restrictions during the following typical deployment scenarios:

The following figure shows the traditional Multicast over Fabric Connect environment with no PIM routers.

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IP Multicast over Fabric Connect streams

In the previous figure, sources and receivers on the edges of the SPB network are IGMP hosts and sources of multicast data. Hence, the traditional Multicast over Fabric Connect host-to-host deployment works.

The following figure shows the traditional Multicast over Fabric Connect environment with PIM routers.

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IP Multicast over Fabric Connect Streams

In the previous figure, sources and receivers on the edges of the SPB network, which are IGMP or source hosts can communicate over the SPB network. Sources and receivers connected to PIM routers cannot participate in the SPB network.