Patent ID: 8355328

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, at a network device, a data packet to be sent via an aggregation group, the aggregation group comprising a plurality of aggregate members; determining a flow set table index, including: determining a first offset based on an identifier for the aggregation group included in the packet; and generating a hash value from the packet, determining a flow identifier of a flow to which the data packet belongs, including: indexing, using the first offset as a first pointer, a portion of a flow set table corresponding with the aggregation group; indexing, using the hash value, a flow set table entry in the portion of the flow set table corresponding with the aggregation group, the flow set table entry including the flow identifier; determining a state of the flow; determining, based on the flow identifier and the state of the flow, an assigned member of the plurality of aggregate members for the flow; and communicating the packet via the assigned member.