Patent ID: 8874955

Claim:
A system to reduce impact of switch failure in a switch fabric and via switch cards, the system comprising: a midplane comprising a fabric interconnect for the switch fabric; one or more server cards coupled with the midplane, wherein each server card is hot-swappable from the midplane; and one or more switch cards coupled with the midplane, wherein the one or more switch cards are operatively connected to the one or more server cards, wherein each switch card is hot-swappable from the midplane and comprises one or more switch modules, wherein each switch module is configured to switch network traffic for at least one of the one or more server cards, and wherein a first switch module of a first switch card is configured to switch network traffic for the one or more server cards upon detection of a failure of a second switch module that is included in the first switch card, thereby reducing, via the one or more switch cards, impact of the failure of the first switch module and on the system.