Patent ID: 7263060

Claim:
A multiple switch protected architecture comprising: a ring; a plurality of switches on said ring; at least one node on said ring, each of said at least one node having at least four links; and an interconnection between said plurality of switches, wherein a first switch of said plurality of switches generates commands to a second switch of said plurality of switches across said interconnection, and wherein when one of the at least four links between a first node of the at least one node and a second node of the at least one node fails, in response to the one link failing, the first node transmits a first set of data to the first switch of the plurality of switches on a first link of the at least four links, the second node transmits a second set of data to the second switch of the plurality of switches on a second link of the at least four links, wherein the second switch provides a copy of the second set of data from the second node to the first switch and the first switch provides a copy of the first set data from the first node to the second switch via the interconnection, wherein the first node receives data from the first switch of the plurality of switches on a third link of the at least four links and wherein the second node receives data from the second switch of the plurality of switches on a fourth link of the at least four links.