Patent ID: 8015290

Claim:
A method for transmitting an application between multiple devices arranged in a stacked configuration, the method comprising: determining a topology for a system, wherein the system comprises multiple groups of switches arranged in a stacked configuration, wherein each group of switches comprises a processor and multiple switches, wherein determining the topology includes: propagating an instruction to known child nodes to look for new child nodes, receiving a reply from the new child nodes, registering the new child nodes including a downlink port to each of the new child nodes, and updating a routing table for the topology for the system; initializing an application for distribution to each of the groups of switches; transmitting the application from a single processor in one of the groups to each of the processors in the other groups using a single instruction, wherein the processors in the other groups propagate the application to the multiple switches within their respective groups; and receiving a code at the single processor that transmitted the application from each of the processors in the other groups, wherein the code indicates a success or failure of the application transmission.