Patent ID: 7808931

Claim:
A method for communication, comprising: configuring a plurality of ring nodes to communicate over a communication network comprising at least three communication rings in a concentric layout, each ring comprising two unidirectional ringlets in mutually-opposite directions, wherein at least two ring nodes are each connected to at least three of the communication rings; accepting a data packet comprising one or more header fields at an ingress ring node; determining an egress ring node to which the data packet is to be forwarded by the ingress ring node; identifying a subset of the rings comprising one or more common rings that are connected to both the ingress and egress ring nodes; responsively to a respective value of at least one of the header fields of the packet, selecting a ringlet of a ring among the one or more common rings; and forwarding the data packet from the ingress ring node to the egress ring node over the selected ringlet.