Patent ID: 7606262

Claim:
A method of scheduling a transfer of data segments through a switching fabric from a plurality of input ports of said switching fabric to a plurality of output ports of said switching fabric wherein a scheduling frame having a predetermined number of time slots and an equal, predetermined duration is associated with each of said plurality of input ports, said method comprising: dividing said duration of each said scheduling frame into a plurality of time windows by a switching fabric device; dividing said plurality of input ports into input-port groups; for each said scheduling frame, forming a plurality of non-intersecting scheduling domains, where each said scheduling domain associates one of said input-port groups with one of said plurality of time windows; concurrently executing scheduling processes, one scheduling process for each of said non-intersecting scheduling domains, each said scheduling process determining a schedule that indicates, for a given scheduling domain, a timing for a transfer of data segments to selected ones of said plurality of output ports from said input ports associated with said time window in said given scheduling domain; and at least where said executing does not use all said time windows of a given scheduling frame, repeating said forming and said executing for pairs of said input-port groups and time windows.