load balance mode works with all ethernet switches without configuring the switch ports to any special trunking mode. only ip traffic will be load-balanced in both inbound and outbound directions. ipx traffic will be load-balanced in the outbound direction only.
other protocol packets will be sent and received through one primary nic only. failover for non-ip traffic is supported using 3com,broadcom,alteon, and intel nics. the generic trunking mode requires the ethernet switch to support some form of port trunking mode (for example, cisco systems gigabit etherchannel or other switch vendors' link aggregation mode). this mode is protocol-independent and all traffic should be loadbalanced and fault-tolerant.