why in ether channel the load balancing is per flow not per packet?

[Ravi Pande]

why in ether channel the load balancing is per flow not per packet?

[Mark Malone · Accepted solution]

Because eventually in a per packet switched environment you will end up with out of order packets load balancing which is a serious issue on a network so per flow is the better choice and you should avoid per packet when doing LB

[Ravi Pande]

Thank you.

[Joseph W. Doherty · Accepted solution]

Duplicate posting, see also: https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/13138016/why-ether-channel-load-balancing-flow-not-packet#comment-11650506

As Mark explained in this thread it avoids out-of-order resequencing, which often is a "bad thing", an so it's likely by design.  Technically, as Jdesanti explains in the other thread, the hardware computes the same link for every frame/packet of a flow.

If, by design, avoiding out-of-order resequencing wasn't a consideration, the hardware could simple round-robin a flow's frames/packets across all the Etherchannel links.

[Ravi Pande]

Thank you.