Link aggregations enable you to pool multiple datalink resources to administer them as a single unit. The combined resources improve bandwidth, provide high network availability, and eases management.
When used with network virtualization, link aggregation has advantages over other high availability technology such as IPMP. For example, while IPMP needs to be configured in every non-global zone, link aggregation is configured in the global zone. The aggregation becomes the underlying link for the non-global zone. When the zone boots, it is assigned a virtual network interface card (VNIC) on the aggregation. Thus the one-time configuration automatically provides highly availability to non-global zones as well.
Because link aggregation groups multiple links into a single logical datalink, the aggregation also benefits from other datalink features, such as link protection and resource management. See Chapter 1, Using Link Protection in Virtualized Environments in Securing the Network in Oracle Solaris 11.4 and Chapter 7, Managing Network Resources in Managing Network Virtualization and Network Resources in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
In Oracle VM server for SPARC, you can configure a virtual switch to use a link aggregation as a network device to connect to the physical network. This configuration enables the virtual switch to avail of aggregation features set by the IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation standard. See Using Link Aggregation With a Virtual Switch in Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.6 Administration Guide. The Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center can be the interface to manage the aggregations. See http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=oc122&id=OPCCM.