System and method to control latency of serially-replicated multi-destination flows

A method comprising:

• receiving, at a network port of a network device, a first packet associated with a first multicast traffic;
• and
• in response to receipt of the first packet, i) serially replicating, across a first set of network ports of a plurality of network ports associated with the network device, according to a first sequence of the first set of network ports, the first multicast traffic and ii) forwarding, via a network, the replicated multicast traffic to a plurality of computing devices associated with the first multicast traffic;
• receiving, at the network device, a second packet associated with a second multicast traffic;
• and
• in response to receipt of the second packet, i) serially replicating, across a second set of network ports of a plurality of network ports associated with the network device, according to a second sequence of the second set of network ports, the second multicast traffic and ii) forwarding, via the network, the replicated multicast traffic to a plurality of computing devices associated with the second multicast traffic,
• wherein the serial replication of the first multicast traffic and the second multicast traffic is i) based on traversal of a plurality of entries in a Multicast Expansion Table (MET) associated with the network device and ii) based on a sequence list associated therewith, each entry being associated with a network port of the first set of network ports, wherein the first sequence is different from the second sequence.

A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon, wherein execution of the instructions, cause a processor a network device to cause the network device to:

• in response to receiving, at a network port of the network device, a first packet associated with a first multicast traffic, i) serially replicate, across a first set of network ports of a plurality of network ports associated with the network device, according to a first sequence of the first set of network ports, the first multicast traffic and ii) forward, via a network, the replicated multicast traffic to a plurality of computing devices associated with the first multicast traffic;
• and
• in response to receiving a second packet associated with a second multicast traffic, i) serially replicate, across a second set of network ports of a plurality of network ports associated with the network device, according to a second sequence of the second set of network ports, the second multicast traffic and ii) forward, via the network, the replicated multicast traffic to a plurality of computing devices associated with the second multicast traffic,
• wherein the serial replication of the first multicast traffic and the second multicast traffic is i) based on traversal of a plurality of entries in a Multicast Expansion Table (MET) associated with the network device and ii) based on a sequence list associated therewith, each entry being associated with a network port of the first set of network ports, wherein the first sequence is different from the second sequence.