– Copied from customer query –
We are using the GigaBlox Rugged -40°C to +100°C GigaBit Switch in a multicast network configuration. However, when we use multicast we have intermittent software bugs on various devices on the network.
These problems seem to go away when we switch back to unicast. Is there a particular firmware or configuration that we need the Gigablox to have for multicast to work properly?
For a switch to work in a multicast network, it has to be multicast aware so that it can read the IGMP reports and send IGMP queries - so that it can route multicast traffic to the correct port(s). A standard unmanaged switch is not multicast aware, and so will typically just broadcast multicast traffic to all ports.
GigaBlox Rugged is a standard unmanaged switch and thus it will simply broadcast multicast traffic to anything connected to it.
This is expected behaviour. The bugs you are seeing in your software may be because devices are seeing multicast traffic they do not expect.We do have a switch that is Multicast aware, SwitchBlox Rugged + Rugged SOM. This is able to read IGMP requests and route data accordingly, however it is 10/100Mbps rather than 1000Mbps like GigaBlox Rugged.
Are you able to share a bit about your network architecture? there may be an alternative solution to your issue.