Determining the group address for an Ethernet-based multicast communication

A multicast group address allocator, comprising:

• a network interface in communication with a plurality of nodes;
• a controller coupled to the network interface;
• and
• a storage medium coupled to the controller,
• wherein, upon request, the controller assigns a multicast address to a new multicast group from among at least a subset of the nodes,
• wherein the controller accesses hash-bin information for the nodes and selects the multicast address for the new multicast group based on the hash-bin information,
• wherein each node has its own node hash-bin information,
• wherein the hash-bin information comprises the node hash-bin information from each node, and
• wherein the hash-bin information is stored in the storage medium of the multicast group address allocator.

A method for multicast group address allocation, comprising:

• receiving a hash-bin information for each node from a plurality of nodes;
• receiving a request to assign a multicast address to a new multicast group from among the nodes, wherein the new multicast group comprises members selected from the plurality of nodes;
• and
• assigning the multicast address for the new multicast group based on the received hash-bin information from each of the nodes,
• wherein each node comprises node hash-bin information, and
• wherein the received hash-bin information comprises the node hash-bin information from each node.