How do I configure a bonding device on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?

Bonding (or channel bonding) is a technology enabled by RHEL, that allows administrators to combine two or more network interfaces to form a single "bonded" interface, for redundancy or increased throughput. The behaviour of the bonded interfaces depends upon the mode; generally speaking, modes provide either hot standby or load balancing services. Additionally, they may provide link integrity monitoring.