Multicast support in .Net

Question

In order to implement a network application that uses multicasts to send small periodic messages to other processes in the network, what choices do I have with regard to using APIs in the .Net framework? Apart from my obvious current choice, the System.net.sockets API, does WCF provide a simpler approach? Or is WCF purely a point-to-point SOA-based IPC mechanism?

Note: I'm quite conversant with the implementation details of multicast programming. What I am interested in hearing is what other choices the .Net framework offers.

Answer 1

I was going to suggest that use callback channels (i.e. a pub/sub type system) implemented in WCF, but that would require your clients to register with the 'server'.

I was then going to mention enterprise class messaging solutions like Tibco EMS (a JMS implementation).

Then I hit google and found this link: WCF Multicasting. There are lots of ideas on there which I've not yet come across in my own inital look at WCF.

Answer 2

You just create a UDPClient and send data to a multicast address (224/4, that is any address from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255).

Your clients just listen on this address as usual.

See my answer here for more details.

P.S. Though WCF is quite an overkill for such a simple task, it's perfectly possible with WCF. There are different Message Exchange Patterns there, i. e. the ways the communication flows.

What you need is IOutputChannel for the sender and IInputChannel for the listeners, these are datagram oriented patterns.