Solved: Berbee's Informacast and Multicasting

zebranutz80 · ‎04-12-2007

I need some help setting up Multicast on my routers.

We Utilize Berbee?s Informacast for live audio phone broadcasts. Informacast uses Multicasting to accomplish this. At our central location Multicasting works fine. However we have several remote offices that need to use Informacast but Multicasting doesn?t work.

We have 2 3660 routers at our central location. Our remote offices connect to the central location with a T1 and a 1760 router.

Does anyone have any advise how to get Multicasting functional at my remote sites?

chrihussey · ‎04-13-2007

Assuming that the Berbee server is at the central location, you will need to enable multicast routing at both the central and remote locations. If there are redundant links to a site, you need to enable m'cast on both links.

Keep in mind that if you enable sparse-dense mode, you will still have to designate an RP for sparse mode to even work.

As I said earlier, the disadvantge with the dense mode is that if you send a Berbee broadcast to a specific remote site, it will be sent to all the others for some time. With sparse mode, only the sites that need the broadcast will get it. If WAN bandwidth utilization is a concern then sparse mode is the better choice.

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chrihussey · ‎04-13-2007

Dense mode is the easiest way, but sparse mode is the probably safest way to implement multicasting on a network. Sparse mode eliminates a lot of unnecessary multicast traffic, especially in a WAN environment.

zebranutz80 · ‎04-13-2007

I wish to use Sparce-Dense mode and let the routers figure out which mode to use. Do I need to enable Multicast on routers at the central location, remote locations, or both?

chrihussey · ‎04-13-2007

Assuming that the Berbee server is at the central location, you will need to enable multicast routing at both the central and remote locations. If there are redundant links to a site, you need to enable m'cast on both links.

Keep in mind that if you enable sparse-dense mode, you will still have to designate an RP for sparse mode to even work.

As I said earlier, the disadvantge with the dense mode is that if you send a Berbee broadcast to a specific remote site, it will be sent to all the others for some time. With sparse mode, only the sites that need the broadcast will get it. If WAN bandwidth utilization is a concern then sparse mode is the better choice.

mgerron · ‎04-16-2007

We are also utilizing Berbee and need to enable Multicast across the network. I have Multicast enabled on the LAN, but am not sure the impact of doing it on all of the remote sites. We currently have 3 Data Centers with 74 remote sites. Any advice on RP placement?

chrihussey · ‎04-16-2007

Of course all networks are different and solutions vary, but I think the best place would be a location that is central to the Berbee server and the remote sites. If the Berbee server is at one of the Data Centers and the remotes aggregate at this center, then I would think this would be the best place for the RP.

zebranutz80 · ‎04-17-2007

I am placing the RP at the Central location where the Berbee server is located. The Berbee server is where the Multicast traffic originates.

Thank you for all of your assistance with this.