Patent ID: 8077713

Claim:
A method comprising: selecting a type of multicast tree that defines a destination label switch router and a path from a source label switch router to the destination label switch router, the type of multicast tree selected being one of a multicast data tree or a multicast control tree, the selection based on a type of operation requested by the source label switch router, the type of operation being one of adding a new label switch router to the multicast tree or deleting the destination label switch router from the multicast tree, the multicast control tree defining a plurality of destination label switch routers, each of the plurality of destination label switch routers defined in the multicast control tree being associated with a different domain, the multicast data tree defining a plurality of destination label switch routers, each of the plurality of destination label switch routers defined in the multicast data tree being associated with a domain; and transmitting a multicast address to the destination label switch router.