Distributed multicast by endpoints

An electronic device comprising:

• a set of processing units for executing sets of instructions;
• and
• a machine readable medium storing a program which when executed by at least one of the processing units replicates and forwards data packets, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
• receiving a multicast data packet of a particular multicast group from a particular endpoint of a remote segment of a network, wherein the particular multicast group has a designated proxy in a local segment that is different from another multicast group's designated proxy in the local segment, wherein the electronic device is designated as the proxy for the particular multicast group in the local segment;
• and
• replicating and forwarding the received multicast data packet to a plurality of endpoints in the local segment of the network that includes the electronic device, wherein the network does not support multicast traffic between the remote segment and the local segment.

A method comprising:

• providing a hypervisor for operating a set of virtual machines;
• connecting a particular virtual machine in the set of virtual machines to a logical network overlaying a physical network, the logical network allocated a multicast group in the physical network;
• and
• sending a data packet from the particular virtual machine to a plurality of receivers in the logical network, wherein at least one of the receivers is in a remote segment of the physical network than the particular virtual machine, wherein the remote segment comprises a proxy for replicating and forwarding the data packet to receivers in the remote segment that belong to the multicast group corresponding to the logical network, wherein each multicast group in a plurality of multicast groups has a designated proxy in the remote segment, at least two of the multicast groups having different designated proxies in the remote segment.