Multicast filtering in industrial Ethernet networks

The need for efficient multicast filtering in Industrial Ethernet networks will most likely rise as a result of its increased usage of multicast protocols and its increasing network capacity. The current support for multicast filtering in industrial Ethernet networks is somewhat limited since the available functionality for handling of L2 multicast is poorly supported both in switches and device stacks. This paper proposes a way to use the widely supported L3 multicast protocol IGMP as a possible means to mitigate this problem until better L2 protocol support is available.