This feature introduces support for Bidirectional PIM (PIM-Bidir) inside a virtual router instance. PIM-Bidir is specified by the IETF in RFC 5015, Bidirectional Protocol Independent Multicast (BIDIR-PIM). It provides an alternative to other PIM modes, such as PIM sparse mode (PIM-SM), PIM dense mode (PIM-DM), and PIM source-specific multicast (SSM). In bidirectional PIM, multicast groups are carried across the network over bidirectional shared trees. This type of tree minimizes the amount of PIM routing state information that must be maintained, which is especially important in networks with numerous and dispersed senders and receivers.