Muticast broadcast crashes network

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So I was setting up Multicast for image deployment on SCCM and when I starting deploying an image to a PC, it really slowdown the network to a point where pinging the default gateway would show packet loss and rendered the network pretty much unusable until I pulled the network cable from the computer. Luckily this was done after hours and did not effect anyone but really scary non the less...

Now I understand how multicast works so I am assuming that I would need some switches/routers that can handle multicast traffic? using IGMP protocols, etc...

Did anyone experience something similar? The other option would be to deploy these PC's on a different network using multicast or just not use it.

 

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Yep - you need to set IGMP up on your switches. It will always rinse your network dry if you do image deployment without setting it up first. I've seen it plenty of times on Ghost deployments - and it's the main reason people don't use Ghostcast (or whatever Slimeantics call it nowadays). Nothing like getting something out of the box, turning it on then watching in horror as it rapidly destroys your network

Make sure your switches can run IGMP (a lot of lower-end stuff can't - and just fall back to broadcast instead of multicast). If you are attempting to multicast across subnets this won't work without a router (or L3 switch) handling IGMP snooping. If you are running switches capable of IGMP, and turn it on in an attempt to resolve it, you need to ensure that IGMP is enabled 'where' it's needed (e.g. on the correct vlan(s))

There is a decent blog post about this somewhere on Symantec's community forums (or there was a few years ago - it might have been pruned out by now). Even though you're using SCCM instead of Ghost, I'd imagine the principles remain the same (haven't ever looked at SCCM). Try popping over there and searching for the words 'IGMP' 'IGMP snooping' 'Ghost' and 'multicast' in various combinations, you're sure to find the info you need.

 

Cool, thanks for the info Zeb!