EtherChannel load-balancing options

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There are two load balancing methods for outgoing traffic in EtherChannel, as follows: round-robin, which spreads the outgoing traffic evenly across all of the adapters in the EtherChannel; and standard, which selects the adapter using an algorithm.

The Hash Mode parameter determines the numerical value that is fed to the algorithm.

The following table summarizes the valid load-balancing option combinations offered.

Table 1. Mode and Hash Mode combinations and the outgoing traffic distributions each produces.
Mode	Hash Mode	Outgoing Traffic Distribution
standard or 8023ad	default	The traditional AIX® behavior. The adapter selection algorithm uses the last byte of the destination IP address (for TCP/IP traffic) or MAC address (for ARP and other non-IP traffic). This mode is typically a good initial choice for a server with a large number of clients.
standard or 8023ad	src_dst_port	The outgoing adapter path is selected by an algorithm using the combined source and destination TCP or UDP port values. Because each connection has a unique TCP or UDP port, the three port-based hash modes provide additional adapter distribution flexibility when there are several, separate TCP or UDP connections between an IP address pair.
standard or 8023ad	src_port	The adapter selection algorithm uses the source TCP or UDP port value. In the netstat -an command output, the port is the TCP/IP address suffix value in the `Local` column.
standard or 8023ad	dst_port	The outgoing adapter path is selected by the algorithm using the destination system port value. In the netstat -an command output, the TCP/IP address suffix in the `Foreign` column is the TCP or UDP destination port value.
round-robin	default	Outgoing traffic is spread evenly across all of the adapter ports in the EtherChannel. This mode is the typical choice for two hosts connected back-to-back (without an intervening switch).