Patent ID: 8160076

Claim:
A method comprising: discovering multicast virtual private network (MVPN) memberships of a plurality of destination routers within a network, wherein each of the plurality of destination routers is coupled to one or more respective customer networks and belongs to at least one of a plurality of different MVPNs, and wherein discovering the MVPN memberships of the destination routers includes receiving Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) advertisements from each of the destination routers that specify virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) instances configured on the destination routers for the different MVPNs to which the respective destination router belongs; allocating, with the source router, a label for receiving control information from the plurality of destination routers and sending Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) advertisements from the source router to the plurality of destination routers to advertise the label to the plurality of destination routers; after discovering the MVPN memberships, establishing a multicast tree within the network for at least one of the discovered MVPNs, the multicast tree comprising a point-to-multipoint (P2MP) label switched path (LSP) forming a tunnel for transporting multicast data packets from a source router providing an ingress to the P2MP LSP to the plurality of destination routers providing a plurality of different egresses from the P2MP LSP; receiving BGP advertisements that encode multicast group join or prune messages as the control information for one or more of the MVPNs using the label allocated by the source router; and transmitting multicast data packets for the MVPNs from the source router through the P2MP LSP to the plurality of destination devices on the multicast tree in accordance with the control information.