Virtual channel balancing in ring-based topologies

A method of routing data packets within a ring network, the method comprising:

• receiving, at a first node of the ring network, a data packet to be transmitted to a destination node, the first node comprising a dimension queueing structure for a first virtual channel, a dimension queueing structure for a second virtual channel, and a first turn queueing structure;
• determining, by the first node, a number of hops the data packet will traverse as it is transmitted from the first node to the destination node of the ring network;
• comparing, by the first node, the number of hops to a threshold hop value to determine whether the number of hops is equal to or less than the threshold hop value;
• and
• transmitting, by the first node, the data packet to a second node comprising a dimension queueing structure for the first virtual channel, a dimension queueing structure for the second virtual channel, and a second turn queueing structure, the transmitting comprising sending the data packet to:
• (i) the dimension queuing structure for the first virtual channel within the second node of the ring network if the number of hops is greater than the threshold hop value;
• or
• (ii) the dimension queuing structure for the second virtual channel or the second turn queuing structure within the second node if the number of hops is equal to or less than the threshold hop value.