A method and apparatus for producing a multicast tree in a network traces such tree based upon information retrieved from a multicast database that is protocol independent. More particularly, the network includes a plurality of network devices. A set of the plurality of network devices each includes the prior noted protocol independent multicast database. After the multicast database in each of the set of network devices is located, the multicast information in such databases is retrieved. After being retrieved, the multicast information is traced across the plurality of network devices to form the multicast tree.