Enabling Multicast over the WAN with Cisco routers.

[network_geek1979]

Folks,

We are looking to enable Multicast routing over the WAN. At this point of time I do not know where to start with and looking for some inputs.
We have multiple offices across the globe and specific to Europe our service provider has mentioned that he can support Multicast streaming on the WAN.

Now, we already have some local Multicast routing going on within an office local to Europe. This Multicast stream is sent by a local server and end workstations in the office pick this stream from that server.

Now, what I am envisioning is using the same local server(which sends the Multicast stream) to send the stream across the WAN as well.

Will that be the way going forward? Or is there some suggestions on how this design can be deployed?

Thanks!!!

N!!

[Joseph W. Doherty]

It depends on you WAN. Generally on dedicated leased lines you can run multicast. On some WAN "cloud" technologies, you cannot run multicast natively, but you often can via tunnels.

On some WAN "cloud" technologies you can also run multicast "natively" if your WAN SP supports it. From your post, this sounds like your case. So, contact your WAN SP for additional information for "how".

[Renan Abreu]

When your provider says they support multicast I believe they are talking about mVPN, you can check what this is if that interests you, but I am mentioning just so you know what it is, it sounds like you won't need to worry about that.

For your network, it sounds all you will need to do is to enable PIM on your WAN links and make sure all sites have the same RP (or use some kind of anycast such as MSDP).