What is the purpose of an RP in PIM?
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A. B. C. D.A.
In Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM), an RP (Rendezvous Point) is a logical entity that is responsible for facilitating the distribution of multicast traffic. The primary purpose of an RP is to act as a shared root for the multicast distribution tree, where the tree represents the path that multicast traffic takes from the sender to the receivers.
Therefore, the correct answer to this question is A - send join messages toward a multicast source SPT.
When a multicast sender starts to transmit data, it sends a multicast stream to a specific multicast group address, and the receivers interested in that stream join the group by sending IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) join messages. PIM is used to create a multicast distribution tree that efficiently delivers multicast traffic from the source to the receivers.
The RP serves as a meeting point for the multicast traffic, where the multicast source sends its traffic to the RP, and the receivers send join messages to the RP. The RP receives these join messages from the receivers and then sends join messages towards the multicast source to create a Shared Tree (ST) that delivers the traffic to all receivers. Additionally, if there is a receiver that needs traffic to be delivered using the shortest path instead of the shared tree, the RP can send join messages to create a Source-Specific Tree (SPT).
Therefore, the RP's primary purpose in PIM is to send join messages toward a multicast source SPT and facilitate the creation of a multicast distribution tree.