A method of generating a forwarding table for a packet switch, the method comprising: identifying (410, 510), in a forwarding table of a packet switch, a plurality of multi-path groups (362, 374, 376), wherein each multi-path group corresponds to a respective initial set of a plurality of routing entries in the forwarding table and each routing entry identifies an egress port of the packet switch and wherein each identified multi-path group has a number of routing entries in the respective initial set of the plurality of routing entries that exceeds a predetermined number of entries in the forwarding table; obtaining (420, 520) an importance score for each of the identified multi-path groups, each importance score indicating importance of the network traffic carried by the identified multi-path group, and wherein the importance scores are obtained based on one of the following factors: a traffic reduction cost metric, types of transmitted packets, ranking of protocols used for flow transmission, exceedance of flow sizing limitation, source and/or destination address, transmitted amount of data during a period of time generating, for one or more multi-path groups in the plurality of the identified multi-path groups based on the obtained importance scores, at least one replacement set of routing entries with fewer routing entries than the initial set of routing entries corresponding to the respective multi-path group; selecting (450, 530), based on the traffic reduction cost metric, one or more of the replacement sets of routing entries, each selected replacement set corresponding to a different respective multi-path group in the plurality of multi-path groups; and replacing (460, 540), in the forwarding table of the packet switch, the initial set of routing entries for each multi-path group corresponding to a selected replacement set of routing entries, with the respective corresponding selected replacement set of routing entries. identifying (410, 510), in a forwarding table of a packet switch, a plurality of multi-path groups (362, 374, 376), wherein each multi-path group corresponds to a respective initial set of a plurality of routing entries in the forwarding table and each routing entry identifies an egress port of the packet switch and wherein each identified multi-path group has a number of routing entries in the respective initial set of the plurality of routing entries that exceeds a predetermined number of entries in the forwarding table; obtaining (420, 520) an importance score for each of the identified multi-path groups, each importance score indicating importance of the network traffic carried by the identified multi-path group, and wherein the importance scores are obtained based on one of the following factors: a traffic reduction cost metric, types of transmitted packets, ranking of protocols used for flow transmission, exceedance of flow sizing limitation, source and/or destination address, transmitted amount of data during a period of time generating, for one or more multi-path groups in the plurality of the identified multi-path groups based on the obtained importance scores, at least one replacement set of routing entries with fewer routing entries than the initial set of routing entries corresponding to the respective multi-path group; selecting (450, 530), based on the traffic reduction cost metric, one or more of the replacement sets of routing entries, each selected replacement set corresponding to a different respective multi-path group in the plurality of multi-path groups; and replacing (460, 540), in the forwarding table of the packet switch, the initial set of routing entries for each multi-path group corresponding to a selected replacement set of routing entries, with the respective corresponding selected replacement set of routing entries.