Patent ID: 7103626

Claim:
A distributed computer system comprising: a first subnet including a first group of endnodes, each endnode in the first group of endnodes having a unique destination location identification (DLID) within the first subnet; a second subnet including a second group of endnodes, each endnode in the second group of endnodes having a unique DLID within the second subnet; a communication fabric physically coupled to the first group of endnodes and the second group of endnodes; and a partitioning mechanism associating a first partition key to every DLID in the first subnet for enabling communication between the first group of endnodes over the communication fabric and associating a second partition key to every DLID in the second subnet for enabling communication between the second group of endnodes over the communication fabric, wherein the endnodes each include a partition key table having a partition key and DLIDs pertinent to the partition key.