Replication with dedicated metal deployment in a cloud

An apparatus comprising:

• a tenant multicast application configured to run in a single virtual machine or container in a single tenant deployment at the apparatus;
• a packet processing instance associated with the tenant multicast application and configured to run in the single virtual machine or container;
• a processor for inserting receiver information into a multicast packet and transmitting the multicast packet over unicast to a virtual replicator configured to replicate the multicast packet and transmit replicated packets over unicast to a plurality of receiving nodes based on said receiver information said receiver information comprising multicast membership information for use in replicating and transmitting the packet to a plurality of receiving nodes;
• and
• memory for storing said receiver information;
• wherein the apparatus is configured for said single tenant deployment in a cloud without multicast capability and wherein the virtual replicator maintains topology state without multicast membership information and operates in a cloud without multicast capability.

A system comprising:

• a plurality of local packet processing instances running on a plurality of hosts, each of the hosts comprising a single tenant in a dedicated metal deployment, each of the local packet processing instances associated with a tenant multicast application and configured to encapsulate a multicast packet with receiver information and transmit the multicast packet to a dedicated virtual replicator;
• and
• the dedicated virtual replicator for replicating the multicast packet received from one of the hosts and transmitting replicated multicast packets to a portion of said plurality of said hosts based on said receiver information, the dedicated virtual replicator configured to maintain topology state without multicast membership information;
• wherein the multicast packets are transmitted over unicast in a cloud without multicast capability and wherein said receiver information comprises multicast membership information inserted into the packet by one of the host nodes for use by the dedicated virtual replicator in replicating and transmitting the packet to a plurality of receiving nodes.