Abstract: Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for which associate physical links of a network device to aggregator ports of the network device where there are more physical links of the network device capable of aggregation than aggregator ports of the network device. Physical links are associated with the aggregator ports of the network device based on a session invariant characteristic of the physical links until either all of the aggregator ports of the network device have been associated with physical links or all of the physical links capable of aggregation have been associated with an aggregator port. The remaining physical links are then utilized as single links to the network device irrespective of the physical link's capability to aggregate.

Abstract: A method and system are disclosed for balanced transmitting of data across a link aggregation of k links in a network, where k is not a power of 2, where data is specified by frames each having a source address and a destination address. N bits of the source address and N bits of the destination address are determined to be XORed together where N is greater than 2. An index table with 2N entry positions is created where each of the entry positions is assigned an index number between 0 and 2N−1. The entry positions of the index table are filled with one link of the k links in each entry position by repetitively entering each of the k links until all of the entry positions are filled. The frames of data with identical source address and destination addresses as other frames of data are grouped into a flow. N bits of the source address are XORed together with N bits of the destination address for each flow to obtain an N bit index number for each flow.

Abstract: When multi-destination traffic is distributed through a host or switch, the decision to distribute each frame is performed by each egress port and not the ingress port. Within a link aggregation group, the multi-destination frame is sent to each of the egress ports within the link aggregation group. Each of such ports will then determine whether it should re-transmit the frame. If not, the frame is discarded.