US Patent 7486674 Data mirroring in a service

Data mirroring in a service such as a virtual private LAN service is disclosed. Data packets, segments, frames, or other forms of encapsulation may be mirrored off of a core network (e.g., IP, TCP) to one or more mirroring destinations without using a parallel network. Encapsulation techniques are provided that enable packets to be mirrored and transmitted across services such as VPLS, MPLS, and others to a mirror destination. Once received at the mirror destination, mirrored packets may be used for troubleshooting in a more efficient and less resource and time-consuming manner.