Patent ID: 7835276

Claim:
A method comprising: snooping, at an intermediate node, an Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) request received from an end node, the IGMP request indicating the end node desires to join a multicast group and receive associated multicast traffic; extracting, at the intermediate node, a plurality of parameters from the IGMP request, the plurality of parameter including at least an address of the end node, an address of the multicast group, and an indication of a port on which the IGMP request was received; classifying, at the intermediate node, the multicast traffic into a particular traffic class based on a match between the plurality of parameters extracted from the IGMP request and one or more parameters of a traffic map; accessing, by the intermediate node, an action associated with the particular traffic class based on the match on the port on which the IGMP request was received; tracking a number of received IGMP requests that indicate that a plurality of end nodes desire to join the multicast group; determining, if the received IGMP request from the end node, indicating the end node's desire to join the multicast group, causes the number of received IGMP requests to exceed a limit; applying the action to control the end node's access to the multicast group on the port on which the IGMP request was received in response to the number of received IGMP requests being below the limit; and denying the received IGMP request, indicating the end node's desire to join the multicast group, in response to received IGMP request causing the number of received IGMP requests to exceed the limit.