- Overview of Prime Network GUI clients
- Setting Up the Prime Network Clients
- Setting Up Change and Configuration Management
- Setting Up Vision Client Maps
- Setting Up Native Reports
- Setting Up Fault Management and the Events Client Default Settings
- Viewing Devices, Links, and Services in Maps
- Drilling Down into an NE’s Physical and Logical Inventories and Changing Basic NE Properties
- Manage Device Configurations and Software Images
- How Prime Network Handles Incoming Events
- Managing Tickets with the Vision Client
- Viewing All Event Types in Prime Network
- Cisco Path Tracer
- Managing IP Address Pools
- Monitoring AAA Configurations
- Managing DWDM Networks
- Managing MPLS Networks
- Managing Carrier Ethernet Configurations
- Managing Ethernet Networks Using Operations, Administration, and Maintenance Tools
- Monitoring Carrier Grade NAT Configurations
- Monitoring Quality of Service
- Managing IP Service Level Agreement (IP SLA) Configurations
- Monitoring IP and MPLS Multicast Configurations
- Managing Session Border Controllers
- Monitoring BNG Configurations
- Managing Mobile Transport Over Pseudowire (MToP) Networks
- Managing Mobile Networks
- Managing Data Center Networks
- Monitoring Cable Technologies
- Monitoring ADSL2+ and VDSL2 Technologies
- Monitoring Quantum Virtualized Packet Core
- VSS Redundancy System
- Icon Reference
- Permissions Required to Perform Tasks Using the Prime Network Clients
- Correlation Examples
- Managing certificates
Monitoring IP and MPLS Multicast Configurations
IP Multicast is a bandwidth-conserving technology that reduces traffic by simultaneously delivering a single stream of information to thousands of corporate recipients and homes. Applications that take advantage of multicast include video conferences, corporate communications, distance learning, and distribution of software, stock quotes, and news.
IP Multicast delivers source traffic to multiple receivers without adding any additional burden on the source or the receivers while using the least network bandwidth of any competing technology. Multicast packets are replicated in the network by Cisco routers enabled with Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM), Multicast Label Distribution Protocol (MLDP) and other supporting multicast protocols resulting in the most efficient delivery of data to multiple receivers possible.
Multicast is based on the concept of a group. An arbitrary group of receivers expresses an interest in receiving a particular data stream. This group does not have any physical or geographical boundaries—the hosts can be located anywhere on the Internet. Hosts that are interested in receiving data flowing to a particular group must join the group using Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP). Hosts must be a member of the group to receive the data stream.
For information on the devices that support IP and multicast, refer to Cisco Prime Network 5.2 Supported VNEs.
These topics provide an overview of the IP Multicast technology and describe how to view IP and multicast configurations using the Vision client. If you cannot perform an operation that is described in these topics, you may not have sufficient permissions; see Permissions for Managing IP and MPLS Multicast.
Prime Network also provides multicast support for:
- MPLS services. See Multicast Label Switching (mLADP).
- Routing entities. If you have configured multicast route information for a VRF, the Vision client displays a separate tab for the related VRF wherein you can view the multicast routing information. See Viewing Routing Entitiesand Viewing VRF Properties.
Viewing Multicast Nodes
Step 1 Right-click on the required device and choose the Inventory option.
Step 2 In the Inventory window, choose Logical Inventory > Multicast. The Route Policies and Multicast Global Interfaces tabs are displayed in the content pane as show in Figure 23-1. You can click on the tabs to view more details.
Figure 23-1 Multicast Content Pane

Table 23-1 describes the fields that are displayed in the Route Policies tab.
Viewing Multicast Protocols
The following Multicast protocols are available in Prime Network:
- Address Family (IPv4)—See Viewing the Address Family (IPv4) Profile.
- Address Family (IPv6)—See Viewing the Address Family (IPv6) Profile.
- IGMP—Viewing the IGMP Profile.
- PIM—Viewing the PIM Profile.
Viewing the Address Family (IPv4) Profile
To view the Address Family (IPv4) profile:
Step 1 Right-click on the required device and choose the Inventory option.
Step 2 In the Inventory window, choose Logical Inventory > Multicast > Address Family (IPV4). The profile details are displayed in the content pane.
Table 23-2 describes the fields that are displayed in the Address Family (IPV4) profile.
Viewing the Address Family (IPv6) Profile
To view the Address Family (IPv6) profile:
Step 1 Right-click on the required device and choose the Inventory option.
Step 2 In the Inventory window, choose Logical Inventory > Multicast > Address Family (IPV6). The profile details are displayed in the content pane.
Table 23-3 describes the fields that are displayed in the Address Family (IPV6) profile.
Viewing the IGMP Profile
The IGMP runs between hosts and their immediately neighboring multicast routers. The mechanisms of the protocol allow a host to inform its local router that it wishes to receive transmissions addressed to a specific multicast group. Also, routers periodically query the LAN to determine if known group members are still active. If there is more than one router on the LAN performing IP multicasting, one of the routers is elected querier and assumes the responsibility of querying the LAN for group members. Based on the group membership information learned from the IGMP, a router is able to determine which (if any) multicast traffic needs to be forwarded to each of its leaf sub networks. Multicast routers use this information, in conjunction with a multicast routing protocol, to support IP multicasting across the Internet.
There are three versions of IGMP:
Step 1 Right-click on the required device and choose the Inventory option.
Step 2 In the Inventory window, choose Logical Inventory > Multicast > IGMP. The IGMP details are displayed in the content pane. You can click on the tabs to view more details.
Table 23-4 describes the fields that are displayed in the IGMP profile.
Viewing the PIM Profile
PIM is a family of multicast routing protocols for Internet Protocol (IP) networks that provide one-to-many and many-to-many distribution of data over a LAN, WAN or the Internet. It is termed protocol-independent because PIM does not include its own topology discovery mechanism, but instead uses routing information supplied by other traditional routing protocols such as the Routing Information Protocol, Open Shortest Path First, Border Gateway Protocol and Multicast Source Discovery Protocol. There are four variants of PIM:
- PIM Sparse Mode (PIM-SM)
- PIM Dense Mode (PIM-DM)
- Bidirectional PIM
- PIM source-specific multicast (PIM-SSM)
Although PIM is called a multicast routing protocol, it actually uses the unicast routing table to perform the Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) check function instead of building up a completely unrelated multicast routing table. PIM does not send and receive multicast routing updates between routers like other routing protocols.
Step 1 Right-click on the required device and choose the Inventory option.
Step 2 In the Inventory window, choose Logical Inventory > Multicast > PIM. The profile details are displayed in the content pane. You can click on the tabs to view more details.
Table 23-5 describes the fields that are displayed in the PIM profile.