Re: Use of SAP in a PIM SSM Network

[Mark Handley <mjh@aciri.org>]

>>From my hallway discussions about MAC-layer collisions, I think the fear
>is that the light switch will join the ALL-LIGHT-SWITCHES group, and if
>that happens to collide at the MAC layer with a 25Mbps video stream the
>light switch's CPU will be too busy dropping traffic to turn the light on.
>Only a layer 3 device could save the light switch, since a layer 2 device
>(even an IGMP-snooping one) can still only filter on the MAC address.

In almost all cases, having IP-aware NICs seems to be a bad thing in
the long run.  This might just be one of those rare cases when it
isn't.

If multicast ever becomes common enough for this to be a real problem,
I'd think this would be a point on which products can differentiate
themselves.

Cheers,
	Mark