Patent ID: 6944786

Claim:
A method comprising: joining by a first node of a network to a multicast group having a multicast address, the multicast address specified by a server using a multicast location identifier (LID) as its source lid (SLID), the first node receiving packets from the server due to the packets being sent to a unicast destination location identifier (DLID) of the first node, the server receiving reply packets from the first node having a non-multicast queue pair (OP), but a multicast DLID, where the joining is selected from the group essentially consisting of: assigning the multicast address to the first node, such that communication to the multicast address is directed to the first node through the network, and, mapping a multicast port on a switch of the network to a port on the first node, such that communication to the multicast address is directed to the port on the first node from the multicast port on the switch; and, upon failure of the first node, if the joining assigned the multicast address to the first node, joining by a second node of the network to the multicast group, such that the multicast address is assigned to the second node, and the communication to the multicast address is handled by the second node, and, if the joining mapped the multicast port on the switch to the port on the first node, remapping the multicast port on the switch to a port on the second node, such that the communication to the multicast address is directed to the port on the second node.