Patent ID: 8811183

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a first switch from a plurality of switches associated with a stage of a switch fabric, the first switch configured to receive a first data packet having a destination address of a destination device from a source device, the first switch configured to store the first data packet in a queue, the first switch configured to define a message based on the queue having an available capacity less than a threshold, the first switch configured to include a congestion root indicator in the message if the available capacity of the queue is decreasing and the first switch is sending data packets at substantially a maximum rate, the first switch is configured to not include the congestion root indicator in the message if the first switch is sending data packets at a rate substantially less than the maximum rate, the first switch configured to send the message to the source device such that the source device sends a second data packet having the destination address of the destination device to a second switch from the plurality of switches and not to the first switch from the plurality of switches if the message includes the congestion root indicator.