| CPC H04L 43/08 (2013.01) [H04L 12/4633 (2013.01)] | 16 Claims |

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1. A method comprising:
obtaining, by a networking device along a path in a network, a schedule that controls when the networking device is to insert telemetry data into data traffic passing through the networking device;
generating, by the networking device, the telemetry data for insertion into the data traffic passing through the networking device;
selecting, by the networking device, a particular encapsulation layer from among a plurality of different encapsulation layers of the data traffic into which the telemetry data is to be inserted based on encoding efficiency metrics associated with those encapsulation layers and the schedule that controls when the networking device is to insert the telemetry data;
inserting, by the networking device and according to the schedule, the telemetry data into the particular encapsulation layer of a particular packet of the data traffic passing through the networking device; and
sending, by the networking device, the particular packet to a next hop along the path in the network.
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