Patent ID: 8644310
Filing Date: 2014-02-04
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of managing multicast traffic, the method comprising: individually tracking in an upstream PIM router the join membership of one or more individual downstream PIM routers that are coupled to a network interface of the upstream PIM router via a multi-access network without disabling JOIN message suppression in all the individual downstream PIM routers, wherein the join membership identifies a type of multicast traffic, the upstream PIM router storing a record for the network interface and each type of multicast traffic information that individually identifies the one or more downstream PIM routers requesting the type of multicast traffic; maintaining by the upstream PIM router, for each network interface and each type of multicast traffic, a first timer that is restarted each time a join membership reaches the network interface, terminating, by the upstream PIM router, transmission of the type of multicast traffic when the first timer attains a value of zero; and maintaining by the upstream PIM router a second timer associated with each of the one or more downstream PIM routers upon receiving a join membership from the one or more downstream PIM routers, respectively, the second timer indicating the amount of time a downstream PIM router wishes to receive traffic from a type of multicast traffic.