Patent ID: 9008091
Filing Date: 2015-04-14
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for improved multicast scaling through policy-based redirection, the method comprising: receiving a packet belonging to an Internet protocol multicast (IPMC) stream, wherein the packet includes packet routing information; performing a lookup in an IPMC forwarding database (FDB) and, in response to failing to locate an entry in the IPMC FDB, attempting to insert the packet routing information in the IPMC FDB; in response to failing to insert the packet routing information in the IPMC FDB: redirecting the IP multicast stream, using the packet redirection rule in the PBR ACR data structure and the entry in the IPMC egress port list data structure and forwarding the IP multicast stream to the at least one port specified by the port list in structure the IPMC egress port list data structure; and wherein redirecting the IP multicast stream using the policy based packet redirection rule in the PBR ACR data structure includes performing a lookup in the PBR ACR data structure for packets in the IPMC stream for which entries do not exist in the IPMC FDB in lieu of performing slow path processing for the packets.