Patent ID: 8787396

Claim:
A network comprising: a first switching domain having a distributed fabric comprised of a plurality of interconnected standalone switches, the standalone switches communicating with each other in accordance with a packet-based distributed fabric protocol; and a second switching domain having a plurality of cell-based switches in communication with a cell-based switch fabric, the cell-based switches of the second switching domain communicating with each other through the cell-based switch fabric in accordance with a cell-based distributed fabric protocol, a given one of the cell-based switches of the second switching domain being coupled by a communication link to a given one of the standalone switches of the first switching domain, the second switching domain further comprising a server device coupled to one of the cell-based switches in the second switching domain, the server device being configured with logic to process control packets for the standalone switches of the first switching domain in accordance with the packet-based distributed fabric protocol and control packets for the cell-based switches of the second switching domain in accordance with a protocol that is different from the packet-based distributed fabric protocol.