US Patent 9100329 Providing non-interrupt failover using a link aggregation mechanism

A device receives traffic; identifies an address associated with the traffic; determines whether the address is associated with an aggregate interface, the aggregate interface being associated with a first port and a second port. The first port corresponds to a first node in a first state, that indicates that the first node is available to forward the traffic, and the second port corresponds to a second node in a second state, that indicates that that the second node is not available to forward the traffic. The device transmits the traffic to the first node via the first port and to the second node, via the second port, when the address is associated with the aggregate interface. Transmitting the traffic enables the second node to forward the traffic when the first node changes from the first state to the second state.