A. The Cisco Multicast Manager is a Web-based network management application that helps monitor and troubleshoot multicast networks.
Q. Who should deploy Cisco Multicast Manager?
A. Enterprises running video delivery systems or financial market data applications and service providers or cable operators providing multicast billable services can greatly benefit from deploying Cisco Multicast Manager.
Q. What benefits can customers expect from deploying Cisco Multicast Manager Release 2.3?
A. Cisco Multicast Manager Release 2.3 provides the following customer benefits:
• Early warning of problems in multicast networks
• In-depth troubleshooting and analysis capabilities
• On-demand, real-time, and historical reporting capabilities
• Optimization of network utilization and enhancement of services delivery over multicast-enabled networks
Q. What major features are provided in Cisco Multicast Manager?
A. The Cisco Multicast Manager provides a rich set of monitoring and troubleshooting features, including:
• Rapid discovery of all Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) enabled routers, verification of Cisco IOS® Software version and device-type information, validation of Cisco IOS Software configuration, Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) version
• Graphical display of multicast-network topologies, including forwarding tree traces, PIM neighbors, PIM interface modes, multicast route tables, IGMP tables, Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP) peers, and Session Advertisement cache information
• Proactive monitoring and analysis of active multicast groups and sources, group status, Rendezvous Point availability, multicast-traffic statistics from source or received on any interface, Layer 2 multicast traffic, and throughput deltas
• Sophisticated polling capabilities of Rendezvous Points to detect joins and leaves, and group additions and removals, of routers to determine if a given source or group exists or if traffic from the source exceeds a given threshold; of Layer 2 switches to collect multicast traffic statistics on a given port or VLAN; of multicast forwarding trees to detect changes; of unicast and multicast routing tables to detect changes
• Detailed diagnostics and extensive reporting capabilities, including Rendezvous Point polling reports, Rendezvous Point group threshold reports, Layer 2 threshold reports, "groups gone" reports, source and group reports, multicast tree reports, routing table reports, traffic trend graphs.
• Unicast and multicast address management, including a database to store and query multicast addresses.
Q. What equipment does the Cisco Multicast Manager manage?
A. All multicast-capable Cisco devices running Cisco IOS Software, including Layer 2 switches.
PRODUCT LICENSING AND PLATFORM REQUIREMENTS
Q. How is Cisco Multicast Manager software licensed?
A. The software is licensed on a per-server basis. The customer must purchase (1) a basic software license (either a Solaris version license or a Linux license) that covers the right to use Cisco Multicast Manager and (2) a one-year minimum Cisco Software Application Support (SAS) contract. Please refer to the Cisco Multicast Manager ordering guide for part numbers and pricing.
Q. What hardware platform is required to run Cisco Multicast Manager?
A. For proper system performance, the following minimum system specifications are required: SunFire V100, 300 MB disk space, 1 GB of memory or the equivalent platform for Linux.
Q. What previous release(s) of Cisco Multicast Manager can a customer upgrade from?
A. Cisco Multicast Manager Release 2.3 is the first Cisco branded release of the Multicast Manager software. Customers who currently have Router Management Solutions Multicast Management Tool software should contact Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) for migration instructions.
