Patent ID: 8837499

Claim:
A program product, comprising: a machine-readable storage device; and program code stored within the machine-readable storage device, wherein the program code, when processed by a machine, causes the machine to perform: at a master switch of a switching network including an upper tier and a lower tier including a plurality of lower tier entities, the master switch having a plurality of ports each coupled to a respective one of the plurality of lower tier entities, implementing on each of the plurality of ports a plurality of virtual ports each corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of remote physical interfaces (RPIs) at the lower tier entity coupled to that port; in response to receipt of data traffic from a particular lower tier entity among the plurality of lower tier entities at an ingress port among the plurality of ports of the master switch, queuing the data traffic to the virtual port of the ingress port that corresponds to the RPI on the particular lower tier entity that was the source of the data traffic; switching the data traffic from the virtual port of the particular port to an egress port among the plurality of ports of the master switch and forwarding the data traffic from the egress port; and presenting a management interface through which RPIs on the plurality of lower tier entities and the plurality of virtual ports are managed as a unified virtual switch.