NP level exam that covers multicast?

I've read that to bridge from CCNP level knowledge up to CCIE preparation one of the gaps in knowledge is multicast....but I need to learn multicast, as it is used extensively at work. Can anyone recommend a book on this topic? If there is a Cisco exam that covers this topic that would be even better.

I know it was in the BSCI exam but is not in the new ROUTE exam. Advice?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Forsaken_GA

ehnde wrote: »

I've read that to bridge from CCNP level knowledge up to CCIE preparation one of the gaps in knowledge is multicast....but I need to learn multicast, as it is used extensively at work. Can anyone recommend a book on this topic? If there is a Cisco exam that covers this topic that would be even better.

I know it was in the BSCI exam but is not in the new ROUTE exam. Advice?

Find a new job?

(I hate multicast)

The Odom CCIE R&S book has pretty good sections on multicast, otherwise, go buy this:

Developing IP Multicast Networks, Volume I (paperback)

The author is the guy who trains Cisco's people on multicast, so I'd say it's got a pretty good shot at being an authoritative text.

ehnde

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Find a new job?

(I hate multicast)

I'll take the time to find out why multicast is so despicable, at least.

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

The Odom CCIE R&S book has pretty good sections on multicast, otherwise, go buy this:

Developing IP Multicast Networks, Volume I (paperback)

The author is the guy who trains Cisco's people on multicast, so I'd say it's got a pretty good shot at being an authoritative text.

That is more than I could have expected. I'll start with Odom's CCIE R&S and go from there. Thanks a ton!

Panzer919

you could always pick up the lab portfolio's for the old CCNP curriculum. There were a few multicast labs in there. Its a good starting point.

jovan88

out of curiousity, what is multicast used for at your work?

jmc012

ehnde wrote: »

I'll take the time to find out why multicast is so despicable, at least.
That is more than I could have expected. I'll start with Odom's CCIE R&S and go from there. Thanks a ton!

I spend my days working with multicast and digital video, nothing despicable about it, it's fascinating. Everything is SSM and IGMP v3 these days, makes things simple not dealing with rendezvous points anymore.

Forsaken_GA

jmc012 wrote: »

I spend my days working with multicast and digital video, nothing despicable about it, it's fascinating. Everything is SSM and IGMP v3 these days, makes things simple not dealing with rendezvous points anymore.

Unforutnately, Cisco still tests on the old stuff. I don't know what it is, but multicast is just a tough subject for me to wrap my brain around. Probably because I just don't work with it enough.

Otoh, it's gotten a bit easier since I found out I can use iperf to generate multicast traffic. Beats the snot out of actually having to go install multicast applications so I can see it in action

Ryan82

One thing I have noticed is that multicast is pretty elusive to a lot of engineers. Most don't seem to have a proper understanding of it and when forced to make it work will generally implement shoddy workarounds, i.e. applying static-group messages everywhere and rolling out dense-mode.

The developing IP multicast networks book is very good.

Doyle also covers it in Routing TCP/IP vol. 2

Zartanasaurus

It's covered somewhat in the SWITCH FLG book.

ehnde

jovan88 wrote: »

out of curiousity, what is multicast used for at your work?

Digital video (cable company).

jmc012

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Unforutnately, Cisco still tests on the old stuff. I don't know what it is, but multicast is just a tough subject for me to wrap my brain around. Probably because I just don't work with it enough.

Otoh, it's gotten a bit easier since I found out I can use iperf to generate multicast traffic. Beats the snot out of actually having to go install multicast applications so I can see it in action

I will have to check out iperf, I just always used VLC to stream traffic for my lab at home. You just have to be careful, it has a bug in the GUI that lets you set the TTL to whatever, but really it stays at 1. There is an easy work around though, I learned that lesson the hard way, after a couple days of configuring and reconfiguring I finally fired up wireshark to see what was going on.

jmc012

ehnde wrote: »

Digital video (cable company).

Same here, we take multicast video feeds from the national headends, studio feeds, satellite feeds and re-multiplex along with other processing and send it out to the hub sites to be converted to RF and sent out Fiber/Coax to the homes. Just get to understand the term RPF well, you have to think backwards alot.