Patent ID: 8711713

Claim:
A flow mirroring method with a network-scoped connection-oriented sink, comprising: specifying one or more flows based on identifiers; adding a unique layer two point-to-point connection identification tag to each of the specified one or more flows; provisioning a layer two point-to-point connection within an Ethernet switch from a mirror port to a sink port, wherein the sink port requires no special provisioning for the port mirroring, wherein the layer two point-to-point connection is terminated on a second Ethernet switch comprising the sink port; designating a mirror type of the mirror port; copying packets from the mirror port responsive to the mirror type and the specified one or more flows; forwarding the copied packets to the sink port on the provisioned point-to-point connection within the Ethernet switch, wherein the copied packets are addressed to the layer two point-to-point connection to the second Ethernet switch; and processing the specified one or more flows at the sink port using the unique layer two point-to-point connection identification tag to identify each of the specified one or more flows; wherein the provisioned layer two point-to-point connection comprises a connection-oriented technique established in a same manner and modality as normal connections such that the sink port requires no special knowledge of a mirrored flow and such that the copied packets are forwarded and addressed to the layer two point-to-point connection instead of any device attached to the second Ethernet switch.