Patent ID: 7990963
Filing Date: 2011-08-02
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: using a label distribution protocol, establishing a point-to-multipoint (P2MP) label switched path (LSP) forming a multicast tree for transporting layer two (L2) multicast data packets for one or more virtual private local area network service (VPLS) multicast instances, wherein the multicast tree includes a source router providing an ingress to the P2MP LSP and a plurality of destination routers providing egresses from the P2MP LSP, wherein each of the one or more destination routers is coupled to one or more respective customer networks having local VPLS sites and belongs to at least one VPLS multicast instance; receiving with the destination routers multicast group join or prune messages from at least one of the customer networks and destined for the source router of the P2MP LSP in accordance with a multicast group management protocol; converting with the destination routers the multicast group join or prune messages into border gateway protocol (BGP) routing protocol advertisements by generating the BGP routing protocol advertisements in accordance with the BGP routing protocol and encoding the join or prune messages within network layer reachability information (NLRI) of the BGP routing protocol advertisements as control information for the VPLS multicast instances; and transmitting the encoded BGP routing protocol advertisements via the BGP routing protocol to communicate the join or prune messages from the destination routers to the source router of the P2MP LSP.