Abstract: Implementations of the present disclosure involve an apparatus, device, component, and/or method for a hardware efficient flow to port affinity management table for link aggregation for a network fabric switch with Ethernet Gateway functionality. Rather than maintaining a state per traffic flow list, the present disclosure utilizes a handle or hash value derived from the traffic flow and associates an output port state to the hash value. The output port state for the hash value is further associated with a portlist that is based on at least a traffic flow policy of the server or group of servers associated with the traffic flow. In addition, the management table may be adjusted based on state changes to one or more of the output ports such that, if a port becomes unavailable, the management table may be adjusted to account for the unavailability of the port.

Abstract: Implementations of the present disclosure involve an apparatus, device, component, and/or method for a hardware efficient flow to port affinity management table for link aggregation for a network fabric switch with Ethernet Gateway functionality. Rather than maintaining a state per traffic flow list, the present disclosure utilizes a handle or hash value derived from the traffic flow and associates an output port state to the hash value. The output port state for the hash value is further associated with a portlist that is based on at least a traffic flow policy of the server or group of servers associated with the traffic flow. In addition, the management table may be adjusted based on state changes to one or more of the output ports such that, if a port becomes unavailable, the management table may be adjusted to account for the unavailability of the port.

Abstract: A switch fabric is provided which comprises a shared memory, a number of switch fabric ports, and a switch fabric data controller. The switch fabric data controller routes blocks of data received at one switch fabric port to one or more other switch fabric ports and writes and reads data to and from, respectively, the shared memory. The switch fabric data controller preferentially routes a block of data from the one switch fabric port to the one or more other switch fabric ports without writing the block of data into the shared memory if the one or more other desired switch fabric ports are free or become free within a predetermined period, and otherwise writes the block of data into the shared memory for temporary storage if the one or more other switch fabric ports are busy. In this manner, the switch fabric facilitates "cut-through" of blocks of data across a switch without the need to write the blocks of data to a shared memory, thereby reducing latency.