Patent ID: 6865160

Claim:
A method operable within a network switch for managing a broadcast tree, said method comprising the steps of: constructing a pruned broadcast tree by propagation of dynamic cost information packets from edge switches, wherein a dynamic cost information packet is sent by an edge switch and a receiving switch sends back a first acknowledgement packet to the edge switch in response to a first dynamic cost information packet, and wherein the first acknowledgement packet will have a set broadcast learn flag to inform the edge switch that broadcast packets will be transmitted from a particular port of the edge switch, where the particular port has received the first acknowledgement packet with the set broadcast learn flag, where the first acknowledgment packet is used to establish a broadcast path from the edge switch to the receiving switch; wherein the first acknowledgement packet is used to establish the broadcast path in order to select the lowest latency path for the broadcast path and any subsequent acknowledgement packets are not used to establish the broadcast path; wherein each dynamic cost information packet includes a cost information determined by a ratio of a port latency value and an available throughput of a port in the edge switch, where the port latency value is equal to a queue depth of data stored in at least one queue associated with the port divided by a data transfer speed associated with the port of the network switch; and forwarding received broadcast messages to other network devices in accordance with said pruned broadcast tree.