Patent ID: 8755396

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising; a switch core having a multi-stage switch fabric physically distributed among a plurality of chassis, a switch module associated with a first stage of the multi-stage switch fabric and not associated with a second stage of the multi-stage switch fabric and being physically located in a first chassis from the plurality of chassis, a switch module associated with the second stage and not associated with the first stage and being physically located in a second chassis from the plurality of chassis mutually exclusive from the first chassis, the multi-stage switch fabric having a plurality of input buffers and a plurality of output ports, the switch core configured to be coupled to a plurality of edge devices; and a controller implemented in hardware without software during operation and with software during configuration and monitoring, the controller coupled to the plurality of input buffers and the plurality of output ports, the controller configured to send a flow control signal to an input buffer from the plurality of input buffers when congestion at an output port from the plurality of output ports is predicted and before congestion in the switch core occurs.