When to Use Multicast vs. Unicast

Last reviewed: September 16, 1997
Article ID: Q165015

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft NetShow version 2.0

SUMMARY

This article discusses when you should use Multicast vs. Unicast.

MORE INFORMATION

Who is your audience? Internet or intranet? If you are multicasting, it gives you a very low consistent amount of bandwidth used, and all points between the client and server must be enabled for multicast.

NOTE: All of the routers between the two must be multicast enabled, or you can do UNIX tunneling to get around non-multicast enabled routers.

Overall, the Internet is not quite ready to support multicast traffic. Therefore, multicasting is currently more suited for an intranet. It does work well on a controlled intranet to reduce the amount of bandwidth you use for NetShow streams.

Additional query words: ns
Keywords : kbother nssrv nsmulti kbfaq
Version : 2.00
Platform : WINDOWS

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Last reviewed: September 16, 1997
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