Patent ID: 8189603

Claim:
A network switch enabled for communication between a plurality of computers in a cluster wherein each computer is not a PCI-Express peripheral device; said network switch comprise a plurality of ports, wherein each port in a first set of ports of said plurality of ports is connected to a computer of said plurality of computers using a PCI Express link, forming said cluster; a data transfer mechanism to transfer data to and from each of said first set of ports to the computer connected to that port, wherein said data transfer is done using a PCI-Express protocol; a switching mechanism in said network switch enabled to transfer data at least between a first port of said first set of ports, on said network switch and any of a rest of said first set of ports, on the network switch; wherein said switching mechanism and said data transfer mechanism together allow data received from the computer connected to said first port to be sent to any of said rest of said plurality of computers; and wherein said switching mechanism and said data transfer mechanism together allows data received from any of said rest of said plurality of computers to be sent to said computer connected to said first port; enabling interconnection and communication within said cluster, between said first of said plurality of computers and any of said rest of said plurality of computers, over said PCI Express Links using PCI Express Protocol.