Method for multicast distribution tree switchover

A method for transmitting multicast data through a network, the method comprising:

• receiving, in a forwarding plane of a router, a plurality of multicast data flows, each multicast data flow comprised of multicast data packets, each multicast data flow being routed through a shared distribution tree in a network and having a corresponding source group (S,G) entry stored in a database of the forwarding plane;
• determining, in the forwarding plane of the router, whether a byte count for each (S,G) entry exceeds a respective threshold value;
• sending an inter-process message from the forwarding plane to a control plane of the router in response to a determination that (S,G) entries have a byte count that exceeds the respective threshold value, the inter-process message indicating the (S,G) entries for the multicast data flows that are determined to have byte counts that exceed the respective threshold values, the inter-process message being a separate communication from the multicast data packets;
• and
• switching from the shared distribution tree to a shortest path distribution tree for each multicast data flow having a corresponding (S,G) entry that is indicated in the inter-process message.