Patent ID: 8050260

Claim:
A method for routing packets in an InfiniBand (IB) multi level switch coupled to a network, comprising: (a) receiving a packet at a port of the switch; (b) parsing information from a packet header of the packet; (c) determining if alternate routing is enabled for the packet; wherein the alternate routing is selectably enabled and disabled by a switch processor by setting a control value that is based on a destination field for identifying a destination for the packet, and a queue pair value; (d) if alternate routing is not enabled, then routing the packet using a base route address that is based on the destination field included in a packet header for the packet; (e) if alternate routing is enabled, determining an alternate route address for the packet by adding the base route address to an offset value; wherein an offset circuit for the port computes the offset value by using a plurality of different fields extracted from the packet header; and (f) routing the packet using the alternate route address, if the alternate route address is valid.