I got an assignment to implement unicast, multicast and broadcast in UDP or TCP in java, so I searched for it and I only got UDP implementation of multicast.
My question is following:
Is there multicast possible in TCP?
TCP Multicast – Is Multicast Possible in TCP?
multicasttcp
Best Answer
In a word: NO
Multicast is a one-to-many system. TCP requires a one-to-one handshake to synchronize counters (sequence numbers) to ensure reliable transport. This cannot be done with many receivers as the sender has no way to know how many receivers there are and thus how many ACKs to expect, or what to do if one of the receivers disappears mid-transfer, etc.
Think of multicast as a speaker in a lecture hall. They don't know how many people are supposed to be there, nor care if some are late or leave. Nor do they know (or care) if everyone in the hall is hearing everything they say.