Patent ID: 8644194

Claim:
A switch comprising: a physical port; memory configured to provide a plurality of virtual output queues and egress queues; and a network processor in communication with the virtual output queues and egress queues, the network processor including: logic configured to logically partition the physical port into a plurality of source virtual ports and destination virtual ports; logic configured to assign switching resources of the switch to each of the virtual ports; logic configured to uniquely associate one or more of the virtual output queues with each source virtual port; logic configured to derive a source virtual port from a frame arriving at the physical port; logic configured to place the frame in a given one of the one or more virtual output queues uniquely associated with the source virtual port derived from the frame; logic configured to determine for the frame a destination physical port based on the source virtual port and a destination virtual port based on the destination physical port; logic configured to transfer the frame from the given virtual output queue in which the frame is placed to an egress queue uniquely associated with the destination virtual port; and logic configured to forward the frame from the egress queue uniquely associated with the destination virtual port to the destination physical port of the switch.