The invention is directed to providing pseudowire tunnel redundancy for VPLS and VLL services in the form of automatic protection switching of the service from a primary pseudowire tunnel to a backup pseudowire tunnel upon detection of a failure affecting the primary pseudowire tunnel. Embodiments of the invention monitor event notifications reported by a network management entity for an indication of a failure affecting the primary pseudowire tunnel; and responsive to detecting the indication, switch a service carried by the primary pseudowire tunnel to the backup pseudowire tunnel. Such event notifications include those corresponding to any of provider edge routers, interface ports, service access points, spokes, and tunnel endpoints that are related to operation of the primary pseudowire tunnel.