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> How do you think multicast is implemented in Ethernet?

Via MLD snooping on switches that support it. Yes, some switches will fall back to broadcast, but only if they're not multicast aware.




Snooping table sizes are typically around 16k entries. IGMP/ND packets are almost always punted to the CPU, so once the CPU is saturated, switches typically either fall back to broadcast or stop forwarding multicasts.

It's not a good outcome either way.


This varies widely by switch model, and 16k is on the low end. I looked at a few random Cisco and Arista switch datasheets just now and saw numbers ranging from 16k to 768k (usually 25% to 100% of the unicast MAC table size of the same switch).

Unicast MAC table space is scarce, too, and suffers the same failure modes when filled. You don't see people claiming this makes IPv4 over Ethernet infeasible. Do proper capacity planning, and this isn't a problem. Oversubscribe your network, and this is a problem even without multicast in the picture.


> Unicast MAC table space is scarce, too, and suffers the same failure modes when filled.

Yup.

> You don't see people claiming this makes IPv4 over Ethernet infeasible

Actually, people DO claim that. Flat Ethernet doesn't scale, and you need to use routing to break up broadcast domains.


> Actually, people DO claim that [MAC table limits make IPv4 over Ethernet infeasible]. Flat Ethernet doesn't scale, and you need to use routing to break up broadcast domains.

This has nothing to do with unicast MAC table limits, and everything to do with ARP's O(n^2) scaling property. You use just as many MAC table entries in a network with 10 VLANs of 100 hosts as you do with 1 VLAN of 1000 hosts. Ethernet scales fine; ARP doesn't.




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