Trunk arrangement in a computer network with intra trunk switch connections

A method of maintaining connectivity of a single logical switching link to edge devices using plural switches, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing each of the plural switches with a plurality of edge ports and with a intra-cluster port;
• connecting each of the edge devices to a separate edge port of each of the switches to form a single logical switch with each of the trunk switches connected to each edge device;
• connecting each intra-cluster port of each of the plural switches with another intra-cluster port of another of the switches;
• constructing a steering data base at each of the switches;
• transmitting data from each edge device to one of the switches of the single logical switch with the transmitting of data being in a form of a data packet with a destination address;
• determining at each trunk switch which of the edge ports and intra-cluster port to send the received data out on based on the steering data and the destination address of the data packet;
• detecting when an edge device has become disconnected from one of the switches;
• updating the steering data bases to change a correspondence between the edge port of the disconnected edge device and the respective switch to include one of the intra-cluster ports for one or more destination addresses.

A switching method for switched data communication between a plurality of different edge devices, the method comprising:

• providing a single logical entity with plural switches forming a single logical entity with a plurality of edge ports at each of the switches and a trunk link at each switch providing an individual link from each of the edge ports to a respective different edge device and with an intra-cluster port at each of the switches;
• providing a logical entity internal path with an intra-cluster link connecting each intra-cluster port of one of the switches to an intra-cluster port of another of the switches;
• providing an address data base for each of the switches for indicating a correspondence of edge ports to the edge devices or for indicating a correspondence of the intra-cluster ports to one or more edge devices upon one or more of the edge devices becoming disconnected from a respective switch;
• transferring data between edge devices via the single logical entity including each of the switches reading data from data packets received at each of the respective edge ports and intra-cluster ports and consulting the respective address data base to determine which respective edge port or intra-cluster port to send the received data out on, and transferring the received data to the determined respective edge port or intra-cluster port including transferring data based on the correspondence of the edge ports to edge devices until detecting at the single logical entity a disconnection between an edge device and a switch edge port and modifying the respective address data base to direct data for the disconnected edge device based on correspondence of the intra-cluster port to the disconnected edge device.