H3C Technologies H3C WX3000 Series Unified Switches - Manual (Page 419)

43-2
Figure 43-1 Information transmission in the unicast mode
Source
Server
Receiver
Receiver
Receiver
Host A
Host B
Host C
Host D
Host E
Packets for Host B
Packets for Host D
Packets for Host E
Assume that Hosts B, D and E need this information. The source server establishes transmission
channels for the devices of these users respectively. As the transmitted traffic over the network is in
direct proportion to the number of users that receive this information, when a large number of users
need this information, the server must send many pieces of information with the same content to the
users. Therefore, the limited bandwidth becomes the bottleneck in information transmission. This
shows that unicast is not good for the transmission of a great deal of information.
Information Transmission in the Broadcast Mode
When you adopt broadcast, the system transmits information to all users on a network. Any user on the
network can receive the information, no matter the information is needed or not.
Figure 43-2 shows
information transmission in broadcast mode.