What protocols in a Switch/ Network Equipment come into play, to ensure efficient Multicast support for WDS/ FOG image deployments?

Question

Note: These are Operating System deployment tools

• WDS - Windows Deployment Services (Not the WiFi WDS)
• FOG - https://fogproject.org/

What "protocols/ capability/ feature/ technical specs" become relevant and are leveraged in a Switch or Networking equipment in order to ensure efficient WDS / FOG multicast based image deployments.

Every higher layer application depends on some lower layer capabilities. Hence, applications choose to use TCP or UDP based on their design parameters. In this vein, I'd like to know what becomes relevant in networking arena in the above application.

Can FOG and/ or WDS do multicast over an ordinary unmanaged Gigabit Switch? or does it need hardware with specific multicast features?

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=673120

Answer 1

Here's what was posted by aero as a reply and makes sense:

You don't need a special or managed switch. However, it would be preferable for your switch to support IGMP Snooping. That will prevent the multicast traffic from being transmitted on every port. Instead, it will only be delivered to ports where there is a listener.

If you are running an access point in the same vlan you're trying to use multicast, and don't have an IGMP snooping capable switch, you WILL completely congest your wifi frequencies. It will completely cripple your wireless network when you try to use multicast.

Secondly, if you are trying to do this over a routed network (rather than all hosts in the same vlan), then you will need a router that supports the PIM protocol.