Patent ID: 8295291

Claim:
A method comprising: determining a plurality of tree identifiers for trees to be used to control distribution of layer two (L2) communications within an L2 network having a plurality of L2 devices, wherein each of the plurality of L2 devices corresponds to a different one of the tree identifiers; computing, with a first one of the L2 devices, the trees for a subset of the tree identifiers without computing the trees for the remaining tree identifiers; computing, with the first one of the L2 devices, flooding next hops for all of the tree identifiers for the L2 devices of the L2 network using the subset of the of the trees, wherein each of the flooding next hops identifies a set of the L2 devices within the L2 network to which to the forward L2 communications; and forwarding, with the first one of the L2 devices, the L2 communications in according with the flooding next hops.