Patent ID: 8243594

Claim:
A method of operating a packet switch, the method comprising: assigning a first link aggregation, comprising a first set of multiple links, to a first link state group dependency group assigning a second link aggregation, comprising a second set of multiple links none of which are members of the first set of links, to the first link state group dependency group; the first link aggregation is internally managed by a first link aggregation control protocol function in the packet switch and the second link aggregation internally is managed by a second link aggregation control protocol function in the packet switch; and a first process local to the first link aggregation control protocol function advertising a state of the first link aggregation to a second process local to the second link aggregation control protocol function, and the second process advertising a state of the second link aggregation to the first process, the first process enabling the links in the first link state group dependency group for data traffic by using the advertisements from the second process during a determination of whether the first link state group meets a first defined link state group dependency criteria.