Cisco Nexus 5000 Series - Cisco Nexus 5000 Series NX-OS SAN Switching Configuration Guide, Release 5.2(1)N1(1

The following figure illustrates how flow-based load balancing works. When the first frame in a flow is
received on an interface for forwarding, link 1 is selected. Each subsequent frame in that flow is sent over the
same link. No frame in SID1 and DID1 utilizes link 2.
Figure 22: SID1, DID1, and Flow-Based Load Balancing
The following figure illustrates how exchange-based load balancing works. When the first frame in an exchange
is received for forwarding on an interface, link 1 is chosen by a hash algorithm. All remaining frames in that
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series NX-OS SAN Switching Configuration Guide, Release 5.2(1)N1(1)
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Configuring SAN Port Channels
Information About SAN Port Channels