Patent ID: 8238250

Claim:
A method for providing dynamic load balancing on a link aggregation, of a network device comprising more than one ports and a flow table capable of storing a plurality of flow entries, each of said flow entries comprising a look-up key and a selected egress port, for a packet from a plurality of packets to be transmitted out on said link aggregation, the method comprising: assigning to said packet from a plurality of packets a default egress port out of said more than one ports using a hash value generated from header information of said packet from a plurality of packets; detecting a congestion condition on said default egress port; and transmitting said packet from a plurality of packets on said selected egress port of one of said flow entries when said one of said flow entries is found using said header information of said packet from a plurality of packets, and transmitting said packet of a plurality of packets on said default egress port when none of said flow entries is found using said header information of said packet from a plurality of packets and said default egress port is not in said congestion condition, and transmitting said packet on a least congested port among said more than one ports and installing a new flow entry, whose look-up key is formed using said header information of said packet of a plurality of packets and which records said least congested port among said more than one ports as said selected egress port of said new flow entry, on said flow table when none of said flow entries is found using said header information of said packet from plurality of packets and said default egress port is in said congestion condition.