in fig1 all three of nics 22 are illustrated as being functionally combined together to form a single team 24 in some embodiments fewer than all nics can be combined together to form a team in yet other embodiments more than one team of nics can be formed u s patent pub no 2005 0038878 entitled u201c network controller u201d provides additional information about forming teams and is herein incorporated by reference because server 20 can form teams from among its nics 22 server 20 is referred to as a u201c aggregation based server u201d one or more of the ports 42 of switch 40 can also be combined together to form a team or port aggregation as defined by the ieee 802 3ad specification such as team 44 the constituent ports forming the team are called u201c team members u201d because switch 40 can form teams from among its ports 42 switch 40 is referred to as a u201c aggregation based switch u201d in accordance with embodiments of the invention the aggregation based server 20 and aggregation based switch 40 implement an u201c aggregation u201d protocol an aggregation protocol enables two network devices e g a server and a switch two servers two switches etc to discover each other 39 s teaming capability an aggregation protocol permits multiple aggregation based network devices to discover that the devices have two or more physical ports in common that can be u201c bound u201d together as a single virtual port an aggregation protocol comprises rules and methods that allow two systems to agree on the ports to operate together to form a virtual.