Multicast is a network communication method where data is transmitted from one source to a group of recipients. Unlike Unicast, where data is sent from one source to a single recipient, Multicast enables efficient transmission of data to a pre-defined group of recipients who wish to share the data.
In Multicast, data is sent once from the source and copied by routers in the network and forwarded to all participants in the multicast group. This reduces network traffic compared to Unicast, where separate copies of the data would need to be sent to each individual recipient.
Multicast is commonly used in applications such as multimedia streaming, video or audio conferencing, distributed gaming, and software updates, where the same data needs to be sent to multiple participants simultaneously. It is an efficient mechanism for saving bandwidth and improving the scalability of network applications.
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