RNP > Technologies > Multicast > Multicast at RNP > Pilot Project

Pilot Project

The Multicast Pilot Project consists of the planning, implantation, testing and evaluation of an experimental multicast environment in RNP2 backbone. The project will involve several of RNP's Points of Presence (PoPs), simulating real operation conditions of the multicast service. The pilot will permit evaluating technical alternatives to provide the multicast service in a native way in RNP2 backbone.

Until recently, the multicast initiatives operated only in "tunneled" networks; that is to say, the multicast traffic was directed by means of IP tunnels connecting multicast routers. With the advent of RNP2, several of RNP's PoPs received equipment with support to multicast routing, making it possible to carry out the pilot project.

The multicast interconnection in native mode to Internet2 is also part of this project. It will permit access to multicast sessions involving several high performance academic networks, including virtual conferences, multimedia transmissions and collaborative applications. Therefore, RNP2 will make international multicast content available to its client institutions.

Finally, this project will serve as a basis for the implantation of a production multicast infrastructure, reaching all of RNP's national backbone. The pilot will permit defining the bases for the construction of a logical multicast infrastructure that can be used on a permanent basis for the transmission of lectures, events and seminars involving the institutions using RNP2.

Technical Information

In order to carry out the project a multicast routing infrastructure will be assembled using the Cisco 7507 routers of RNP2 backbone. Other routers can be used in the experiment, as long as they have multicast support. This infrastructure will contemplate the use of multicast routing protocols such as IGMP, PIM-SM, MSDP and MBGP.

To carry out the connectivity and performance tests, experiments will be made with several tools, such as Beacon, a Java-based application which generates and receives multicast traffic. Through a central server named beaconserver, RNP will provide a simple web-based mechanism so as to verify the multicast connectivity among RNP2's clients.