Patent ID: 8295290

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of controlling data flow between network devices over parallel data links, each network device having a plurality of communications adapters, said method being performed in at least one of the network devices and comprising: defining a link group comprising a primary communication adapter and one or more secondary communication adapters; initializing the defined link group by enabling said primary communication adapter and disabling each of said secondary communication adapters; periodically determining the amount of data to be carried over links in said defined link group; in response to a determination that the amount of data to be carried satisfies a predetermined threshold condition related to the data capacity of said primary communication adapter, enabling one or more of said secondary communication adapters; in response to a determination that the amount of data to be carried over the links satisfies a threshold condition related to the combined data capacity of a subset of the set of enabled communication adapters in said defined link group, disabling at least one of said one or more of said secondary communication adapters in said defined link group; in response to a determination that the amount of data to be carried over the links in said defined link group satisfies a predetermined threshold condition related to the combined data capacity of all currently enabled communication adapters in said defined link group, enabling one or more additional secondary communication adapters in said defined link group; and repeating the above operation as necessary until all secondary communication adapters in said defined link group are enabled.