Method and apparatus for providing a multicast service with multiple types of protection and recovery

An apparatus for protecting multicast service comprising:

• a service splitting module, configured to split a multicast service into a plurality of unidirectional point-to-point services from a source node to a sink node, a signaling message of each of the plurality of unidirectional point-to-point services being independent of one another;
• a label switch path establishing module, configured to establish, at the source node which publishes the multicast service, one or more label switch paths for each of the plurality of unidirectional point-to-point services by the signaling messages;
• and
• a failure processing module, configured to receive a notification message when a failure occurs in a network, and establish one of a recovered label switch path and a new backup label switch path in response to the notification message, the notification message carrying at least one ID of one or more label switch paths that are affected by the failure.