Multicast can be a live event, or a prerecorded clip. The players connect to the stream, rather than to the Server.
 

Schedual an Mbone Multicast here, at the Mbone session Agenda .

Download a PERL script that provides diagnostic information about a multicast group, Multicast Beacon.

Overview

MBONE, the Multicast BackbONE
Mike Macedonia and Don Brutzman-Naval Postgraduate School

"MBONE: Mu lticasting Tomorrow's Internet", by by Kevin Savetz, Neil Randall, and Yves Lepage (Note that this is a little out of date, circa 1996; e.g., it describes the "MBone" only as a DVMRP overlay network.
 

In Depth Links

National Laboratory for Applied Networks Research

Measures of the Multicast Enabled Internet
 from Multicast Technologies.
Multicast Technologies FAQ
Multicast Technologies graphs  are intended to provide a synoptic view of long term changes, and thus to complement the more detailed short term information available from sources such as Mantra.

Figure 1a : The Number of Prefixes in our MBGP tables - a measure of the extent of the Multicast Enabled Internet

A basic measure of the size of the Multicast Enabled Internet is given by Figure 1a, which shows the number of address blocks (or prefixes) that have multicast routing as seen from the Multicast Technologies Autonomous System.
This number can be expected to grow proportionally to the number of sites that are Multicast Enabled, as each additional address block will tend to represent a new computer network (such as a LAN or a WAN) that has become multicast enabled.

Figure 2a : The Number of Autonomous Systems in the Multicast Enabled Internet
 

The total number of Autonomous Systems with multicast routing, shown in Figure 2a, provides a different measure of the growth of the multicast enabled Internet. Although multicast systems represent networks that vary widely in size, each new Autonomous System with multicast routing represents a new network enabled for multicast. Occasional rapid drops in the numbers of multicast Autonomous Systems are caused by failure of network links, and this metric has proven useful as an indicator of network problems.

The current text list of Autonomous Systems with multicast routing as seen from Multicast Technologies, click here .

Tools For Load Generation and Testing

National Labroratory for advanced Network Research Performance and Measurement tools

MBONE TOOLS

mbone tools   @ Berkley computing Lab
mbone tools   @ The University College of London
The MBone VCR Page

PROTOCOLS

MBONE Deployment (mboned) IETF

Multiparty Multimedia Session Control (mmusic)  IETF

Video Multipoint Control Unit (MCU)/bridge, data MCU/bridge

H.248/Media Gateway Control (Megaco),

General Multicasting Information

Addresses available for multicast use÷"Assigned Numbers," RFC 1700, available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1700.txt.

Scalable Multicasting Information

RTP "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications," RFC 1889, available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1889.txt.

RTP "RTP Profile for Audio and Video Conferences with Minimal Control," RFC 1890, available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1890.txt.

RFC3550 (RealTime Transport Protocol) http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3550.txt/

SDP (Session Description Protocol)÷"SDP: Session Description Protocol," RFC 2327, available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2327.txt.

SAP (Session Announcement Protocol)÷"Session Announcement Protocol: Version 2," available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2974.txt.

SAP Information

An SAP file is a list, with information that can be sent to programs configured to read them.

Multicast SDP Files

AN SDP file, is a standard format that contains information such as the multicast addresses and ports, as well as the broadcast stream's title, author, and copyright information. The media player receives the SDP file when the viewer clicks the multicast link in a Web page, and connects to the multicast using the file's information.

A viewer can also download the SDP file, typically by right-clicking on the Web page link, and then connect to the multicast later by opening the file directly in the media player.

Linking to a Scalable Multicast uses the same format whether it appear in a Web page or in a metafile; they always specify the HTTP protocol. The requested stream always ends with the .sdp extension.

The following illustrates the link format:

http://address:port/mount_point/path/file.vps.sdp

This example uses its default port 80 for HTTP, so the port number is not listed:

http://server.example.com/scalable/news/live.vps.sdp

The requested file includes the stream name specified for the broadcast by the encoder, such as live.vps.

You then append an extra .sdp extension. Even though MPEG unicasts link to an SDP file, as in live_mp4.sdp, the multicast requires an extra .sdp extension in
the request URL, as in live_mp4.sdp.sdp.

UDP-level multicast tunneling

If you have a Unix machine at your site, you can set up DVMRP multicast routing, using the "mrouted" multicast routing agent. Your ISP will need to configure their end of the DVMRP tunnel, either from one of their routers, or by running "mrouted" themselves. UDP-level multicast tunneling between you and your ISP. Your ISP can run a UMTP server such as "liveGate". At your end, you will need to run a UMTP client, such as the "multikit" session browser, or the "liveCaster" 'data caster'.

More information about the MBone...

live.com

Cisco Systems' "IP Multicast Planning and Deployment Guide"
CAIDA's "MANTRA project" monitors the topology and state of the global MBone