Communication modes

• Unicast • Multicast
• One sender • One sender
• One receiver • N receivers
S-38.3191 Verkkopalvelujen tuotanto • Broadcast • Anycast
S-38.3191 Network Service Provisioning
• One sender • One sender
Lecture 5: Multicast
23.10.2008 • All receive • One receiver on a group

Juha Järvinen @ netlab.tkk.fi

Mostly based on material by

Lic.Tech. Marko Luoma

Page 1 Page 2 S-38.3191: Multicast

Forwarding modes Multicast

Point-to-point
It is all about determining where

- From single ingress to single egress - are the receivers
- ’link’ - Is the knowleddge of receivers maintained
- Broadcast vs multicast

Point-to-multipoint
- the replication of packets should be done
- From single ingress to multiple egress
- Is there knowledge about service within the network
- ’tree’
- Source replication vs network replication

Multipoint-to-multipoint
- From multiple ingress to multiple egress
- ’mesh’

Page 3 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 4 S-38.3191: Multicast

Multicast forwarding Forwarding

Problem
Unicast forwarding

- How to form a point-to-multipoint structure that is efficient - Forwarding of packets towards destination via the shortest path
- e.g. Shortest path tree - SPF is based on weighting of IGP

Reverse path forwarding

Reverse path forwarding
- Logic:
- Forwarding of packets away from the shortest path to the sender
- Send out replicate of the packet to all interfaces except to the one with the shortest
path to the sender - No knowledge of the destination only about the source
- That is where the packet should have come in the first place
Reverse path forwarding check
- Dropped duplicates along the way on the network
- Accept packets only from the link which points to SPF towards source
- Wasted resources
- From the sender to all other stations on the network
- Wasted resources

Page 5 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 6 S-38.3191: Multicast

Building an intelligent tree

1. Router R1 checks: Did the

2. Router R2 accepts packets
sent from Router R1 because
that is the shortest path to the
Sender. The packet gets sent
out all interfaces.
3. Router R2 drops
packets that arrive from
Router R3 because that
is not the shortest path to
the sender. Avoids cycles.
Sender data packet arrive on the
Requirements
interface with the shortest path
to the Sender? Yes, so it accepts - We know where the receivers are
the packet, duplicates it, and - Group management protocol (IGMP)
forwards the packet out all other
interfaces except the interface - Receivers express their existence to the network
that is the shortest path to the
R1 sender (i.e the interface the join, leave
packet arrived on). - We are able to communicate that knowledge within the network
- Multicast routing protocol (PIM)
Drop
- Activation of RPF on selected downstream links
R2 R3
Drop

R4 R5 R6 R7

Page 7 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 8 S-38.3191: Multicast

Building an intelligent tree

If we want to minimize the state information within the core we can build a
shared tree for each sender RP

- A single point within the network acts as a relay agent data

- Traffic in unicast sent to relay point which then multicasts it forward in RPF-tree R
R
- Efficiency depends on the distribution of sources and receivers in relation to
data
location of relay-point
- Usually very uneffiecient due to sparse nature of receivers and variable locations of R R R
sources

data

R R R R R

Sender Receiver 2

Page 9 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 10 S-38.3191: Multicast Receiver 1

Building an intelligent tree

If we want to achieve maximal efficiency, we must use shortest paths toward

source of the information not towards common replication point RP

- Use explicit source rooted RPF-tree

- Joining/grafting to multicast tree at the lowest level possible R
R
- Pruning from the tree if there are no receivers below

R R R

R R R R R
data data data data

Sender Receiver 2

Page 11 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 12 S-38.3191: Multicast Receiver 1

PIM PIM

Is a combination of shared tree and source specific tree operation
Different Modes
- Infrequent packets are replicated in a single point (shared tree) - Sparse Mode (SM)
- Randevouz point - is the most widely deployed as of 2006
- High data volumes are transferred in more optimal way (source specific tree) - Dense Mode (DM)
- Decission based on predefined policy - Source Specific Mode (SSM)
- Data rate greater than x - Bidirectional Mode (Bidir) [Also commonly known as Sparse-Dense Mode
- Amount of bytes greater than x (SDM)]

SSM and Bidir are simpler and more scalable variations developed more
recently and gaining in popularity

Page 13 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 14 S-38.3191: Multicast

PIM-SM
Multicast Distribution Trees

Is a protocol for efficiently routing to multicast groups that may span wide- • Shared trees • Source specific tree
area (and inter-domain) internets. – Uses less resources from the network – Takes more resources from the network
• Amount of state information is depent of N(*,G) • Amount of state information is dependent of N(S,G)

It is not dependent on any particular unicast routing protocol for topology – All sources (*) are mapped into single distribution tree – Every source (S) has its own distribution tree per group
discovery per group (G) (G)
– Usually suboptimal path from the source to all • Optimal path from the source to all receivers within
- sparse-mode because it is suitable for groups where a very low percentage of receivers within the group the group
the nodes (and their routers) will subscribe to the multicast session. »Unless RP is rooted at the source – Minimizes the IGP cost towards source from each
receiver
- Unlike earlier dense-mode multicast routing protocols such as DVMRP and PIM-
DM which flooded packets everywhere and then pruned off branches where – Optimal for one-to-many distribution
there were no receivers, PIM-SM explicitly constructs a tree from each sender to (point-to-multipoint)
the receivers in the multicast group. Multicast packets from the sender then
follow this tree.

Page 15 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 16 S-38.3191: Multicast

 Rendezvous Rendezvous
Point Point
RP RP

Join

R R
R R

Join

R R R R R R

Join

DR1 R DR2 R R DR1 R DR2 R R

1. Receiver 1 joins the multicast
group. Designated Router DR2
sends a Join message toward the
RP. Periodically, DR2 resends the
Join message in case it was lost.
Page 17 S-38.3191: Multicast
2. Routers along the path to RP create
router state for the group, adding
themselves to the shared tree.
Receiver 1
1. Sender begins sending to a multicast group. 3. The RP decapsulates the packet
and sends it out the shared tree.
2. Designated Router DR1 encapsulates the
packets from Sender in Register messages and
unicasts them to RP.
Page 18 S-38.3191: Multicast Receiver 1

Source Specific
1. RP sees traffic from Sender at a Join 3. RP sees unencapsulated traffic
Rendezvous rate > threshold. It sends source Rendezvous from Sender and sends a Register
Point Point Stop message to DR1. DR1 then
RP specific join request toward Sender. RP
Prune stops sending encapsulated traffic
2. DR1 adds DR2 to the to RP.
source specific tree for R
R
R
R
Sender.

Prune

R R R R R R

Source Specific Prune

Join Join

DR1 R DR2 R R DR1 R DR2 R R

2. DR1 adds RP to the source specific tree

1. DR2 sees traffic from Sender at a rate > 3. DR2 sees traffic from Sender coming from for Sender.
threshold. It sends a source specific join request RPF tree, it sends a Source Specific Prune
towards Sender. message toward RP. This removes DR2 from the
shared tree.
Page 19 S-38.3191: Multicast Receiver 1 Page 20 S-38.3191: Multicast Receiver 1
Rendezvous Point (RP) Interdomain multicast

Location of RP can be based on
Need to transfer multicast routing information across domain borders
- Static configuration of served groups - Active groups (senders and receivers)
- Bootstrap process with priorities - Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP)
- Anycast operation - Unicast routes for RPF
- Multicast BGP (MBGP)

Bootstrap Router (BSR)
- Dynamically elected (like OSPF DR election process)
- Constructs a set of RP IP addresses based on received Candidate-RP
messages

Page 21 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 22 S-38.3191: Multicast

1. Source registration in to PIM-RP is announced to MSDP peers Domain E 2. Receiver joins to group via PIM-SM Domain E

PIM-SM
RP RP
“Join”
SA r r
Domain C Domain C

Join (*, 224.2.2.2)

RP RP
SA
Domain B SA SA Domain B

RP RP
PIM-SM
SA “Join”
RP RP

SA Domain D Domain D

RP RP
s s
Domain A Register Domain A
Page 23 S-38.3191: Multicast 192.1.1.1, 224.2.2.2 Page 24 S-38.3191: Multicast
 3. Traffic flows from the source to receiver via shared trees Domain E 4. Source specific tree optimisations are done for the traffic flow Domain E

RP RP
r r
Domain C Domain C

RP RP
Domain B Domain B

RP RP

Traffic Traffic
RP RP

Domain D Domain D

RP RP
s s
Domain A Domain A
Page 25 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 26 S-38.3191: Multicast

MBGP

Domain E
Multiprotocol Extensions to BGP (RFC 2283).

- Tag unicast prefixes as multicast source prefixes for intra-domain multicast
RP routing protocols to do RPF checks.
r - Why same routes two times
Domain C
- Allows for inter-domain RPF checking where unicast and multicast paths are non-
congruent
RP
Domain B - Inter-provider relationships
Policies ;-)
RP

Traffic
RP

Domain D

RP
s
Domain A
Page 27 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 28 S-38.3191: Multicast
MBGP Multicast over Layer 3 VPNs

Different NLRI (Network Layer Reachability Information) for unicast and

multicast routes
- Address Family Information (AFI) = 1 (IPv4)
- SAFI = 1 (NLRI is used for unicast)
- SAFI = 2 (NLRI is used for multicast RPF check)
- SAFI = 3 (NLRI is used for both unicast and multicast RPF check)

Allows for different policies between multicast and unicast

- For example different ingress/egress point for unicast and multicast traffic

Figure: Juniper

http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/software/junos/junos62/feature-guide-62/html/fg-l3vpn-multicast2.html

Page 29 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 30 S-38.3191: Multicast

MPLS VPN multicast MPLS VPN multicast

Multicasting in MPLS VPN is not straight forward

- Optimal replication requires state in core routers (P)

Separate Tree Separate Tree

per-set-of MVPNs per-set-of C-(S,G)s
“Inclusive Mapping” “Selective
Mapping”

Ingress Separate Tree for

Replication Every C-(S,G)

Figure: Cisco
Decreasing Increasing
•P-router state •P-router state
•Bandwidth efficiency •Bandwidth efficiency http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_2t/12_2t13/feature/guide/ftmltvpn.html

Page 31 S-38.3191: Multicast Page 32 S-38.3191: Multicast


Scalability
• Optimizing performance
– A given customer (multicast)
packet should traverse a given
service provider link at most once
– Deliver customer multicast traffic
to only PEs that have (customer)
receivers for that traffic
– Deliver customer multicast traffic
along the “optimal” paths within
the service provider (from the
ingress PE to the egress PEs)
Page 33 S-38.3191: Multicast
Ucast Edge
CE
Mcast Edge PE
P P
CE
Page 35 S-38.3191: Multicast
• Optimizing state-space
– The amount of state within the
service provider network required
to support Multicast in 2547 VPN
service should be no greater than
what is required to support unicast
in 2547 VPN service
– The overhead of maintaining the
state to support Multicast in 2547
VPN service should be no greater
than what is required to support
unicast in 2547 VPN service
MPLS Core
Mcast Content
CE
PE
Mcast/Ucast
PE
Internet Peering
CE
P
PE
Data plane

How to tunnel multicast traffic in Service Provider network
- By using p2mp LSP’s
- Static distribution trees
- GRE encapsulation and IP multicast forwarding
- Multicast distribution trees
- Aka multicast service
- Unicast tunneling with ingress replication

How to exchange multicast routing information with service provider network
- MBGP
- PIM
- MSDP
- Tunneling through
Page 34 S-38.3191: Multicast
Multicast in use

Wikipedia: ”Recently the BBC has begun encouraging UK-based ISPs to
adopt Multicast onto their networks by providing BBC Radio at higher
quality than is available via their Unicast delivered services. This has also
been supported by a variety of commercial radio networks - including Virgin
Radio, GCAP and EMAP.”

Some operators use Multicast as an internal service.

More in the future?
Page 36 S-38.3191: Multicast
Summary

“Multicast is a network addressing method for the delivery of information to

a group of destinations simultaneously using the most efficient strategy to
deliver the messages over each link of the network only once, creating
copies only when the links to the multiple destinations split (typically
network switches and routers). Multicast is often used for streaming media
and Internet television applications.”

Path between source and destination is not always optimal

It is possible
- to use Multicast between different domains
- to create Multicast VPNs

Page 37 S-38.3191: Multicast