Methods and apparatus related to a low cost data center architecture

An apparatus, comprising:

• a multi-stage switch fabric defining a single logical entity, the multi-stage switch fabric configured to be coupled to a first edge device and a second edge device, the multi-stage switch fabric including a plurality of switch modules, each switch module from the plurality of switch modules including a shared memory device configured to define a queue having a length sufficient for the multi-stage switch fabric to implement cell-switching synchronization and insufficient for the multi-stage switch fabric to implement a congestion resolution scheme at that switch module.

A method, comprising:

• receiving a plurality of cells at a plurality of input ports of a multi-stage switch fabric, each cell from the plurality of cells being associated with a packet from a plurality of packets received by a plurality of ingress edge devices;
• and
• switching each cell from the plurality of cells through a multi-stage switch fabric without performing Ethernet-based processing within the multi-stage switch fabric, the multi-stage switch fabric defining a single Ethernet hop between the plurality of ingress edge devices and a plurality of egress edge devices, the multi-stage switch fabric having a plurality of switch modules, each switch module from the plurality of switch modules having a shared memory device.