Patent ID: 8730963

Claim:
A system for providing improved multi-switch link aggregation group (MLAG) convergence, the system comprising: a packet forwarding device comprising: a packet processor for receiving a packet and determining that the packet is destined for a port of the packet forwarding device associated with an MLAG group; and an MLAG module associated with the packet processor for determining that the port is inactive, and in response to determining that the port is inactive, performing a convergence operation, wherein the convergence operation includes redirecting, using a redirection filter, the received packet towards an active port associated with the MLAG group, wherein entries containing media access control (MAC) information associated with the inactive port in the forwarding database remain unchanged during the convergence operation, wherein traffic addressed to the inactive port associated with an MLAG group is redirected towards an active port associated with an MLAG group and, in response to a reverting event, the MLAG module is configured to remove the redirection filter such that traffic is forwarded to the previously inactive port.