Channel bonding is a
computer networking arrangement in which two or more
network interfaces on a host computer are combined for redundancy or increased
throughput. Channel bonding is differentiated from
load balancing in that load balancing divides traffic between network interfaces on per
network socket (
OSI model layer 4) basis, while channel bonding implies a division of traffic between physical interfaces at a lower level, either per packet (
OSI model Layer 3) or a data link (
OSI model Layer 2) basis.