As a rough comparison, we could think about link aggregation (802.3ad LACP) as a network technology layer 2 (Datalink), which acts as the inverse of IPMP (network technology layer 3: IP). While IPMP is concerned with offering network interface fault tolerance—eliminating a single point of failure and offering a higher outbound throughput as a bonus—link aggregation works as the old "trunk" product from previous versions of Oracle Solaris and offers a high throughput for the network traffic and, as a bonus, also provides a fault tolerance feature so that if a network interface fails, the traffic isn't interrupted.
Summarizing the facts:
IPMP is recommended for fault tolerance, but it offers some output load balance
Link aggregation is recommended for increasing the throughput, but it also offers fault tolerance
The link aggregation feature puts two or more network interfaces together and administers all of them as a single unit. Basically, link aggregation presents...