Multicast – the Sleeping Giant
Dom Robinson · 2017
This chapter aims to create a simple picture of multicast and the challenges it faces in technical deployment for a content delivery network (CDN). The deployment of a suitable multicast routing protocol is what people typically talk about when exploring if a network is “multicast enabled”. It is generally true to say that unless a security policy has actively prevented multicast on a LAN segment, all LANs are already multicast enabled. In practice, very few ISPs allow their end users to send IP multicast upstream past their customer premises equipment (CPE). As IP multicast models arrive, the massive multiplayer online (MMO) could become a more truly “shared” space, streamed from a core where the game world is created and the end user viewpoints are streaming “windows” on that world. This could change the distribution models at one level. At another level it may change the entire game design.