One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch capable of processing software-defined data flows. The switch includes an identifier management module and a flow definition management module. During operation, the identifier management module allocates a logical identifier to a link aggregation port group which includes a plurality of ports associated with different links. The flow definition management module processes a flow definition corresponding to the logical identifier, applies the flow definition to ports in the link aggregation port group, and update lookup information for the link aggregation port group based on the flow definition.