Patent ID: 7913024

Claim:
A method, in a data processing system, for differentiating between different traffic types comprising: generating, by the data processing system, a first mapping data structure that, for each single-root virtual hierarchy in a plurality of single-root virtual hierarchies of the data processing system, associates a plurality of traffic classes with a plurality of priority groups and maps each traffic class in the plurality of traffic classes to a corresponding virtual channel in a plurality of virtual channels; generating, by the data processing system, a second mapping data structure that maps each virtual channel in the plurality of virtual channels to a corresponding virtual link in a plurality of virtual links of the data processing system; and routing, by the data processing system, traffic of a particular priority group from a single-root virtual hierarchy to a particular virtual link in the plurality of the virtual links based on the first mapping data structure and second mapping data structure, wherein the first mapping data structure and second mapping data structure route data from each single-root virtual hierarchy, in the plurality of single-root virtual hierarchies, having a same priority group to a same virtual link in the plurality of virtual links.