Patent ID: 8837517

Claim:
A network, comprising: a first tier of network switches, each network switch configured to receive and transmit data over an external network; a second tier of network devices, each network device configured to receive and transmit data from at least one of the network switches; at least one transpose box configured to connect at least a portion of the first tier of network switches to at least a portion of the second tier of network switches, the transpose box being of a type selected from a plurality of transpose box types based at least in part upon a connection topology of the network, the transpose box including: a physical support structure; a set of network connectors supported by the physical support structure, the set of network connectors separated into a first logical group and a second logical group each containing a plurality of the network connectors, each network connector configured to accept a network cable for transmitting a signal, at least one of the network connectors in the first logical group having a first type of identifying key that is different from a second type of identifying key of at least one of the network connectors in the second logical group, a number of types of identifying keys used by the set of network connectors based at least in part on the connection topology of the network; and a plurality of connection media, each instance of the connection media connecting one of the network connectors of the first logical group to one of the network connectors of the second logical group to enable a signal to be communicated between a network cable connected to the network connector of the first logical group and a network cable connected to the network connector of the second logical group, the connection media configured such that each network connector of the first logical group is connected to each network connector of the second logical group and each network connector of the second logical group is connected to each member of the first logical group.