Patent ID: 7623519

Claim:
A method for routing data within a switch to a destination port, the data having a destination identifier with a region address portion and a port address portion, the method comprising: a) applying multiple routing rules to the data in parallel, each rule determining whether the rule applies to the data by examining the destination identifier, and determining a routing result for the data, the routing result including an address for internal routing within the switch, a priority value for the routing request, and a zoning determination, the multiple routing rules include the following rules: i) a plurality of split region rules, each rule applying to a specific region, wherein (1) each split region rule is determined to apply by examining the region address portion of the destination identifier, and (2) each split region rule determines the routing result by examining a routing table using the port address portion of the destination identifier as an index to the table, and ii) a single lumped region rule that applies to all data, wherein the lumped region rule determines the routing result by examining a routing table using the region address portion of the destination identifier as an index to the table; and b) selecting a preferred result from among all of the results obtained from the multiple routing rules.