Multicast is when someone sends a single set of data packets across a network to multiple selected users at the same time. Multicast is subscription-based: Computers that want to receive multicast traffic use ICMP messages to let routers know which multicast addresses they want to subscribe to. The routers are then able to calculate which multicast messages they need to send to receivers on their different interfaces. A packet is considered a multicast packet if the destination IP address is in the range 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255.

In order to let you easily view and filter data about multicast traffic, PerformanceGuard comes with a number of preconfigured multicast groups that you can use if you only want to include multicast traffic data of a particular type in your multicast graphs and overviews.

The preconfigured groups cover the most common types of multicast traffic, LLMNR and SSDP. If that's all you want, you don't need to create further multicast groups.

However, if your organization uses special applications that use particular multicast IP addresses not covered by the LLMNR and SSDP groups, you can set up your own multicast groups to allow easy viewing of multicast traffic data from those special applications.

Examples: A bank uses different multicast IP addresses for distributing data about different stocks on the bank's internal network. An entertainment company that streams movies uses different multicast IP addresses for their movie channels. You can use multicast groups to be able to monitor each of such multicast IP addresses separately.

To manage multicast groups, select ADMINISTRATION > Server > Multicast.

You can only do this if you're a PerformanceGuard administrator.

Create New Multicast Group

Select ADMINISTRATION > Server > Multicast and specify a name for your new multicast group.
Specify the required multicast IP address (must be in the range 224.0.0.0-239.255.255.255) and the required mask length.
Specify required multicast port.
If you specify 0, all ports on the specified multicast IP address will be included.
Click the Create Group button.

If you measure multicast traffic, make sure that the agent configuration group setting Network Report > Enable Multicast UDP Reports is enabled.

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