Hybrid Unicast/Multicast DNS-Based Service Discovery
Apple Inc.
Performing DNS-Based Service Discovery using purely Multicast DNS allows discovery only of services present on the local link. Using a very large local link with thousands of hosts improves service discovery, but at the cost of large amounts of multicast traffic. Performing DNS-Based Service Discovery using purely Unicast DNS is more efficient, but requires configuration of DNS Update keys on the devices offering the services, which can be onerous for simple devices like printers and network cameras. Hence a compromise is needed, that provides easy service discovery without requiring either large amounts of multicast traffic or onerous configuration.