When the next hop of an IP route (hereafter referred to as the dependent route) resolves over another IP route (hereafter referred to as the resolving route), the adjacency information of the resolving route’s FEC is typically duplicated into the dependent route’s FEC. With this feature, we prevent the duplication of the adjacency information. Instead, the dependent route’s FEC points to the resolving route’s FEC, forming a hierarchical FEC for the dependent route.