Patent ID: 8650285

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, at a particular edge node of a network including a plurality of network elements, a first multicast data packet forwarded from another network element in the plurality of network elements, the first multicast data packet including data received from a particular device interfacing with the network through a first edge node included in the plurality of network elements, the first multicast data packet multicast to the plurality of network elements by the first edge node, wherein the particular edge node is included in a first redundancy group including a first set of edge nodes included in the plurality of network elements, the first set of edge nodes including at least one other edge node in addition to the particular edge node; examining the first multicast data packet to identify a first hint added to the first multicast data packet following transmission of the first multicast data packet to the first edge node by the particular device, wherein the hint corresponds to the particular device; identifying the particular device from the first hint; determining that the particular edge node does not interface with the particular device in response to identifying the particular device from the first hint; determining, in response to determining that the particular edge node does not interface with the particular device, that the particular edge node is designated as a forwarding node for the first redundancy group; and forwarding the first multicast data packet, using the particular edge node, based at least in part on the determination that the particular edge node is designated as a forwarding node for the first redundancy group.