Networking

Multicast

eBPF-Powered Efficiency for Multicast in Kubernetes

Smarter Network Utilization

IP multicast is a bandwidth-conserving technology that reduces traffic by simultaneously delivering a single stream of information to potentially thousands of recipients. Multicast addresses the technical challenge of efficiently delivering data from a single source to multiple recipients simultaneously over a network. Multicast has found its use case in traditional networking, but Kubernetes networking often relies on unicast and broadcast methods.

In data transmission to containers within a Kubernetes cluster, packets are replicated and sent to every container regardless of their need. This approach might not be ideal for some applications with specific requirements and can lead to significant network congestion, high bandwidth, and overhead.

Travel Bee

Muticast the Cloud Native Way

Cilium's multicast feature enables efficient network communication. By leveraging multicast, Cilium can efficiently transmit and replicate a single data stream to reach multiple consumer containers in a Kubernetes cluster, reducing the overall network bandwidth and overhead. This approach is particularly beneficial for industries like financial services, media, and entertainment, which typically have multiple services and endpoints that need to communicate simultaneously.

multi-cluster illustration

Bringing the eBPF Revolution to Multicast

Cilium's multicast implementation is not just efficient, it's also technically advanced. It's based on eBPF, a technology known for its exceptional efficiency and performance. By leveraging eBPF, Cilium ensures that the same level of optimization is brought to multicast as it does to a variety of other networking use cases.

multi-cast ebee

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