Patent ID: 8667095

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving information identifying a plurality of virtual connections (VCs) available within a network, wherein at least one of the virtual connections is a point-to-multipoint virtual connection or a multipoint-to-multipoint virtual connection; identifying a set of one or more nodes that are configured with one of a plurality of Internet Protocol (IP) subnets and that have access to one of the VCs; assigning the one of the IP subnets to the one of the VCs, wherein the assigning comprises assigning a most constrained IP subnet to the one of the VCs, in response to receiving information indicating one or more proposed assignments from one or more other nodes; and verifying that each of the one or more other nodes is prepared to assign the most constrained IP subnet to the VC, prior to the assigning, wherein the receiving, the identifying, the verifying, and the assigning are performed by a node coupled to the network.