Patent ID: 7496033

Claim:
A method implemented in a switching system having a scheduler and a plurality of ports: (a) a port receiving a demand request from the scheduler; (b) the port calculating a set of ordered port schedules, wherein each port schedule defines a set of port-to-port connections for transferring data from a corresponding one of the plurality of ports; (c) receiving the set of port schedules from the port; (d) determining whether an aggregation of a first-choice port schedules forms a valid system schedule; (e) if the aggregation forms a valid system schedule, implementing the aggregation; (f) if the aggregation does not form a valid system schedule, discarding at least a portion of the aggregation, replacing the discarded portion with a corresponding portion of a next-choice schedule from the port and determining whether the aggregation of the port schedules forms a valid system schedule; and (g) repeating (f) until the aggregation of the port schedules forms a valid system schedule.