Patent ID: 8665748

Claim:
A method performed by a network device for energy efficient configuration of a physical port of a plurality of physical ports of the network device, wherein the plurality of physical ports are aggregated into a logical port in a logical communication channel between the network device and a device, the method comprising: determining a configuration of the plurality of physical ports, the configuration including one or more parameters; monitoring the one or more parameters, including determining a number of active links in the logical communication channel; comparing the determined number of active links in the logical communication channel to a minimum threshold number of active links; if the determined number of active links is less than or equal to the minimum threshold number of active links, selecting a physical port from the plurality of physical ports having a standby port state and modifying a configuration state of the selected physical port from the standby port state to one of an active port state and an active port state with a limited bandwidth utilization rate; and if the determined number of active links is greater than the minimum threshold number of active links, determining a bandwidth utilization load of the logical communication channel and comparing the bandwidth utilization load to a removal threshold to determine whether to modify a configure state of one of the plurality of physical ports.