Scenario:

I am implementing failed over for a network node, so my idea is to make the master node listens on a broadcast ip address and port. If the master node fails, another failover node will start listening on this broadcast address (and port) and take over.

Question:

My concern is that I will be using a broadcast IP address just for a single node: the master. The failover node only binds if the master fails, in other words, almost never.

In terms of network/traffic overhead, is it bad to talk to a single node through a broadcast address or the network somehow is smart enough to know that nobody else is listening to this broadcast address and kind of treat it as a unicast in terms of overhead?

My concern is that I will be flooding my network with packets from this broadcast address even thought I am just really talking to a single node (the master). But I can't use unicast because the failover node has to be able to pick up the master stream quickly and transparently in case it fails.