Switch fabric with path redundancy

摘要

A method of forwarding data in a network switch fabric is disclosed. An incoming data packet is received at a first port of the fabric and a first packet portion, less than a full packet length, is read to determine particular packet information, the particular packet information including a source address and a destination address. An egress port bitmap is determined based on a lookup in a forwarding table and it is determined if the destination address belongs to a trunk group of trunked ports. The incoming data packet is forwarded based on the egress port bitmap, when the destination address does not belong to the trunk group. When the destination address does belong to the trunk group, a particular trunked port of the trunk group is determined and the incoming data packet is forwarded thereto. More specifically, the particular trunked port of the trunk group may be determined by calculating a hash value based on the source address and the destination value and selecting the particular trunked port based on the hash value. Additionally, a class of service for the incoming data packet is also determined from the particular packet information and a priority for forwarding is set based on the class of service.