Patent ID: 7116679

Claim:
In a data switch including a plurality of interface modules wherein each of at least two of the plurality of interface module have a dissimilar communication medium, a method of forwarding a block of data comprising: receiving a first packet in a first protocol via a first interface module of the plurality of interface modules; translating the first packet into a generic format to create a generic packet having an associated descriptor, wherein the associated descriptor comprises a quality of service field for provisioning resources and a buffer descriptor for provisioning system buffer resources, and further wherein the buffer descriptor comprises a buffer control word wherein the buffer control word specifies a number of bytes of the block of data in the system buffer; placing the generic packet into a receiving queue corresponding to a quality of service level of the generic packet; passing the generic packet to an application according to the associated descriptor of the generic packet; translating the generic packet into a second protocol to create a second packet at a second interface module; and sending the second packet to an output port, wherein the first interface module and the second interface module are associated with dissimilar communication media.