| CPC H04L 45/22 (2013.01) [H04L 45/24 (2013.01); H04L 45/26 (2013.01); H04L 45/38 (2013.01); H04L 45/60 (2013.01)] | 22 Claims |

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1. A switch, comprising:
a plurality of ports, each port in the plurality of ports being configured to connect with a communication node among a plurality of communications nodes;
switching hardware configured to selectively interconnect the plurality of ports thereby enabling communications between the plurality of ports; and
a switching engine that controls a transmission of packets across the switching hardware by completely draining a demand matrix and reducing an upper bound of a number of matchings needed to completely drain the demand matrix while draining the demand matrix, wherein each matching in the demand matrix corresponds to a different pair of communication nodes that are connectable among the plurality of communication nodes, and wherein the switching engine reduces the upper bound by implementing an invest operation that includes:
relieving a most loaded communication node from receiving an extra packet load while draining the demand matrix; and
using a selected communication node as a relay node when the selected communication node has no packets of its own waiting to reach a destination communication node.
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