Scheduling traffic over aggregated bundles of links

A network device comprising:

• at least one interface that receives packets associated with packet flows;
• and
• a data plane that associates each of the packet flows with a different one of an aggregated bundle of two or more links,
• wherein the at least one interface transmits the packets of the packet flows via the associated link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links, and
• wherein the data plane monitors the transmission of the packets via each of the associated links of the aggregated bundle of two or more links to determine a representation of an amount of data sent per link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links, calculates a balance percentage as a function of the amount of data sent per link for a first link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links and the amount of data sent per link for a second link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links, determines that bandwidth utilization does not conform to a desired bandwidth utilization of each of the links of the aggregated bundle of two or more when the balance percentage is greater than a balance threshold, and re-associates at least one of the packet flows to a different link of the aggregated bundle of the two or more links based on the determination that the bandwidth utilization does not conform to the desired bandwidth utilization of each of the links of the aggregated bundle of two or more links.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed cause one or more processors of a network device to:

• associate packet flows of packets to different links of an aggregated bundle of two or more links;
• transmit the packets of the packet flows via the associated different links of the aggregated bundle of two or more links;
• monitor the transmission of the packets via each of the corresponding assigned link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links to determine a representation of an amount of data sent per link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links;
• calculate a balance percentage as a function of the amount of data sent per link for a first link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links and the amount of data sent per link for a second link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links;
• determine that bandwidth utilization is unbalanced between the aggregated bundle of two or more links when the balance percentage is greater than a balance threshold;
• and
• re-associate at least one of the packet flows with a different link of the aggregated bundle of the two or more links based on the determination that the bandwidth utilization is unbalanced.

A method comprising:

• associating, with a data plane of a network device, packet flows of packets with different links of an aggregated bundle of two or more links based on application of a hash function to a header of each of the packets associated with packet flows to generate a corresponding hash value, wherein the header identifies the one of the packet flows to which each of the packets corresponds, and wherein the hash value comprises an index into a link association table that includes a plurality of entries that are associated with the links of the aggregated bundle of two or more links,
• transmitting, with the data plane of the network device, the packets of the packet flows via the different links of the aggregated bundle of two or more links with which the packets are associated;
• determining a byte-count for each of the packets;
• and
• updating a byte-count table having a same number of entries as the link association table with the determined byte-counts for each of the packets, wherein the entries of the byte-count data each stores a cumulative byte-count representative of a portion of an amount of data sent via the link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links identified by a corresponding entry in the link association table;
• adding the cumulative byte-counts so as to determine the amount of data sent per link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links;
• determining, with the data plane of the network device, that the bandwidth utilization does not conform to a desired utilization of each of the links of the aggregated bundle of two or more links based on a comparison of the amounts of data sent per link of the aggregated bundle of two or more links to one another;
• and
• re-associating, with the data plane of the network device, at least one of the packet flows with a different link of the aggregated bundle of the two or more links based on the determination that the bandwidth utilization does not conform to the desired utilization of each of the links of the aggregated bundle of two or more links.