Patent ID: 7715384

Claim:
A network device for selecting a port from a trunk group to transmit a unicast packet on the selected port the network device comprising: at least one trunk group comprising a plurality of physical ports; a table comprising a plurality of entries, wherein each entry is associated with one trunk group and comprises a plurality of fields that are associated with ports in the trunk group and wherein each entry comprises a hash field that is used to select bits from predefined fields of an incoming unicast packet to obtain an index bit for accessing one of the plurality of fields, the predefined fields being based on a value stored in the hash field, and including: a source address, a VLAN, an Ethertype, a source module identifier and a source port associated with the unicast packet to obtain the index bit for accessing one of the plurality of fields; or a destination address, a VLAN, an Ethertype, a source module identifier and a source port associated with the unicast packet to obtain the index bit for accessing one of the plurality of fields; or a source address, a destination address, a VLAN, an Ethertype, a source module identifier and a source port associated with the unicast packet to obtain the index bit for accessing one of the plurality of fields; or a source IP address, and a TCP source port associated with the unicast packet to obtain the index bit for accessing one of the plurality of fields; or a destination IP address, and a TCP destination port associated with the unicast packet to obtain the index bit for accessing one of the plurality of fields; or a source IP address, a TCP source port, a destination IP address and a TCP destination port associated with the unicast packet to obtain the index bit for accessing one of the plurality of fields; and a transmitter configured to transmit the unicast packet to a port associated with an accessed field of the plurality of fields, wherein the network device is configured to hash the selected bits from the predefined fields to obtain the index bit for accessing one of the plurality of fields.