Patent ID: 8345568

Claim:
A method comprising: provisioning a first virtual connection between a first device and a second device; provisioning a second virtual connection between the first device and the second device; receiving a data flow at the first device; duplicating the data flow to generated duplicated data flows; transmitting the duplicated data flows to the second device via the first virtual connection and the second virtual connection; receiving the duplicated data flows at the second device via the first virtual connection and the second virtual connection; determining a performance characteristic of the data flow received via the first virtual connection; determining the performance characteristic of the data flow received via the second virtual connection; selecting, for forwarding, the data flow received via the first virtual connection or the data flow received via the second virtual connection based on the performance characteristics of the data flow received via the first virtual connection and the performance characteristic of the data flow received via the second virtual connection; and forwarding the selected data flow.