In an example, a system is described which includes a centralized controller, a first agent controller, and a second agent controller. The centralized controller executes a routing application to control routing of network traffic across links of a wide area network. The first agent controller is deployed at a branch location of the wide area network to notify the routing application when a host at the branch location requests membership in a multicast group. The second agent controller is deployed at a headend of the wide area network to modify a forwarding rule in response to an instruction from the routing application. The forwarding rule controls an interaction between the headend location and an upstream router to redirect network traffic associated with the multicast group in a manner that joins the host to the multicast group.