Patent ID: 7860097

Claim:
A method of transmitting data over a switching fabric from a symmetric multiprocessor having a memory, the method comprising: managing a plurality of transmit queues organized as a plurality of logical network interfaces, each transmit queue referencing a corresponding respective plurality of transmit buffers in the memory, the managing performed at least in part by at least one network interface driver process executing on the symmetric multiprocessor; assigning a media access control address that is shared by each transmit queue within each logical network interface; storing the data into the transmit buffers by at least one application process executing on the symmetric multiprocessor; within egress logic, scheduling processing of the transmit queues; via a bus interface of the egress logic, reading the data into the egress logic in accordance with the scheduling; within the egress logic, providing cells to an included fabric interface in accordance with selective groupings of the data, each cell including a fabric egress port address corresponding to a destination network address of each data grouping and the fabric egress port address further corresponding to a physical fabric egress port of the fabric; and via the fabric interface, sending the cells to the fabric.