Patent ID: 7813287

Claim:
A method for instantly aging-out group and source records in a state transition table located within a router, said method comprising the steps of: receiving a Change-to-Include-Mode message from a remote network element; performing one or more actions based on a first old state and the Change-to-Include-Mode message to obtain a first new state where neither of the one or more actions required that a query be sent to the remote network element; updating the first old state to the first new state in the state transition table where the transition from the first old state to the first new state instantly aged-out at least a portion of the group and source records associated with the first old state; receiving a Change-to-Exclude-Mode message from the remote network element; performing one or more actions based on a second old state and the Change-to-Exclude-Mode message to obtain a second new state where neither of the one or more actions required that a query be sent to the remote network element; and updating the second old state to the second new state in the state transition table where the transition from the second old state to the second new state instantly aged-out at least a portion of the group and source records associated with the second old state.