Patent ID: 8295203

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by a system, a request to add a first node to a membership tree including a first plurality of nodes associated with a multicast group; identifying, by the system, a second node in the first plurality of nodes, wherein the first and second nodes are separated from each other by at least one other node of the first plurality of nodes, wherein identifying the second node includes identifying a sub-tree including a second plurality of nodes that includes the second node and the first node; communicating, by the system, a node identifier that identifies the first node over a network to the second node, the node identifier to be stored at the second node to add the first node to the membership tree, the node identifier to be stored in the membership tree exclusively at the second node to enable the second node to forward the multicast traffic to the first node; and wherein the first node is associated with a multicast member that has been added to the multicast group, wherein the multicast member is stored in a database that is managed by a subscription manager that communicates over a network with the first node and wherein the database comprises map information to map logical node identifiers to physical node identifiers, dissemination tree information, membership tree information comprising information used for communicating multicast traffic over the membership tree, mode transition information used for transitioning from a transient mode to an active mode, and domain information used to communicate multicast traffic across administrative domains.