Methods and apparatus related to any-to-any connectivity within a data center

An apparatus, comprising;

• a switch core having a multi-stage switch fabric physically distributed across a plurality of chassis, the multi-stage switch fabric having a plurality of ingress ports and a plurality of egress ports, the switch core configured to be coupled to a plurality of peripheral processing devices via the plurality of ingress ports and the plurality of egress ports,
• the switch core configured to provide connectivity at line rate for each peripheral processing device from the plurality of peripheral processing devices to each remaining peripheral processing device from the plurality of peripheral processing devices such that each egress port from the plurality of egress ports is equitably accessible by each peripheral processing device from the plurality of peripheral processing devices via an ingress port from the plurality of ingress ports.

An apparatus, comprising:

• a switch core defining a single logical entity and having a multi-stage switch fabric physically distributed across a plurality of chassis, the multi-stage switch fabric having a plurality of ingress ports and a plurality of egress ports, the switch core configured to be coupled to a plurality of peripheral processing devices via the plurality of ingress ports and the plurality of egress ports, the plurality of peripheral processing devices including a first peripheral device, a second peripheral device and a third peripheral device,
• the switch core configured to receive a first packet associated with the first peripheral processing device, the switch core configured to send sequentially a second packet to a second peripheral processing device and a third packet to the third peripheral processing device based on cells associated with the first packet, the multi-stage switch fabric configured to send the cells from ingress ports from the plurality of ingress ports to egress ports from the egress ports.