Dell PowerEdge M420 Dell PowerConnect M8024-k User's Configuration Guide - Page 80

Layer 2 Multicast Features For information about configuring L2 multicast features, see "Configuring L2 Multicast Features" on page 713. MAC Multicast Support Multicast service is a limited broadcast service that allows one-to-many and many-to-many connections. In Layer 2 multicast services, a single frame addressed to a specific multicast address is received, and copies of the frame to be transmitted on each relevant port are created. IGMP Snooping Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Snooping is a feature that allows a switch to forward multicast traffic intelligently on the switch. Multicast IP traffic is traffic that is destined to a host group. Host groups are identified by class D IP addresses, which range from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255. Based on the IGMP query and report messages, the switch forwards traffic only to the ports that request the multicast traffic. This prevents the switch from broadcasting the traffic to all ports and possibly affecting network performance. IGMP Snooping Querier When Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) and IGMP are enabled in a network with IP multicast routing, the IP multicast router acts as the IGMP querier. However, if the IP-multicast traffic in a VLAN needs to be Layer 2 switched only, an IP-multicast router is not required. The IGMP Snooping Querier can perform the IGMP snooping functions on the VLAN. MLD Snooping In IPv4, Layer 2 switches can use IGMP Snooping to limit the flooding of multicast traffic by dynamically configuring Layer 2 interfaces so that multicast traffic is forwarded to only those interfaces associated with IP multicast address. In IPv6, MLD snooping performs a similar function. With MLD snooping, IPv6 multicast data is selectively forwarded to a list of ports intended to receive the data (instead of being flooded to all of the ports in a VLAN). This list is constructed by snooping IPv6 multicast control packets. 80 Switch Features