INTEROPERABILITY BETWEEN MULTICAST PROTOCOL VARIANTS

Abstract

A network device in a network is provided. During operation, the network device can operate as a first rendezvous point (RP) of a Bidirectional Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM-BIDIR) instance and also as a first RP of a PIM sparse mode (PIM-SM) instance. Here, the PIM-BIDIR instance can be deployed in a first segment of the network and the PIM-SM instance can be deployed in a second segment of the network. The network device can receive information associated with a first source of a first multicast group from a second RP of the PIM-SM instance. Subsequent to receiving a first join request for the first multicast group via the PIM-BIDIR instance, the network device can send a second join request of the PIM-SM instance to the first source based on the received information and forward multicast traffic received from the first source via a multicast tree of the PIM-BIDIR instance.

CPC Classifications