What Is Multicast Router (mrouter)?

What do you imagine when you think about a Multicast Router (mrouter)? It could be a large piece of machinery with dials and levers or a big box with lots of blinking lights. The truth is that the multicast router isn't any of these things. The multicast router is an algorithm—a set of instructions determining how the data packets should be delivered to their destinations. The way that this works is by sorting out two kinds of signaling packets: multicast and unicast. The multicast router then controls the issue of the data to their conscious terminus in the Multicast Internet, also known as Multicast Backbone or MBone. Mrouters use a mixture of algorithms to quickly and efficiently initiate sending orders to the application switches to facilitate the delivery of the data packets. Multicast routers (routers) are like unicast routers, but they're a little more special. They do the same thing: route packets from one place to the next. Unlike unicast routers, which only route packets from point A to point B and back again, routers send those packets out to all of their neighbors. It makes them a big part of how multicasting works. When you want to send a message—like an email or video conference call—you must ensure it goes everywhere you want it to go. You can't just send it to one person; you have to send it to all your friends and family simultaneously. It is where routers come in: they take your message and spread it around, so everyone gets it simultaneously. Mrouters do this by working in conjunction with unicast routers—which means there can be multiple routers along the length of a network backbone, sending out copies of messages transmitted by unicast routers on that backbone. The trick is that multicast packets look like unicast ones when sent over the network backbone.