Book excerpt: The Internet is quickly becoming the backbone for the worldwide information society of the future. Point-to-point communication dominates the network today, however, group communication--using multicast technology--will rapidly gain importance as digital, audio, and video transmission, push technology for the Web, and distribution of software updates to millions of end users become ubiquitous. Multicast Communication: Protocols and Applications explains how and why multicast technology is the key to this transition. This book provides network engineers, designers, and administrators with the underlying concepts as well as a complete and detailed description of the protocols and algorithms that comprise multicast. * Presents information on the entire range of multicast protocols, including, PIM-SM, MFTP, and PGM and explains their mechanisms, trade-offs, and solid approaches to their implementation* Provides an in-depth examination of Quality of Service concepts, including: RSVP, ST2, IntServ, and DiffServ* Discusses group address allocation and scoping* Discusses multicast implementation in ATM networks* Builds a solid understanding of the Mbone and surveys the successes and current limitations of real multicast applications on the Internet such as videoconferencing, whiteboards, and distance learning