Patent ID: 8099483

Claim:
A method to perform a dynamic source selection within an IP multicast network, the method comprising: at a router in the IP multicast network, selecting a first primary source of a multicast group to be forwarded to a receiving host; detecting that the first primary source exhibits a predetermined characteristic which causes one of the first primary source or a multicast stream originating from the first primary source to fail, wherein the failure is detected based on channel data and policy data, wherein the channel data and the policy data comprise a list of alternate sources of the multicast group and associated policies configured for the multicast group, and wherein the policy data includes at least one traffic characteristic and reachability associated with the first primary source; and at the router, responsive to the detection that the first primary source exhibits the predetermined characteristic, selecting a second backup source of the multicast group to be forwarded to the receiving host according to at least one of an active traffic state, a reduced traffic state, a corrupted traffic state, and an absent traffic state that is determined for each of the alternate sources, wherein the automatic selection of the second backup source of the multicast group is performed with reference to a rule, and wherein the rule is one of a group of rules including a select-one rule to select a single source from the plurality of sources of the multicast group, a select-all rule to select all operational sources from the plurality of sources, and a complex rule according to a logical expression.