US Patent 11765103 Large-scale network with high port utilization

A data communication system includes a plurality of mutually-disjoint sets of switches, each set including multiple mutually-disjoint subsets of the switches in the set. Local links interconnect the switches within each of the subsets in a fully-connected topology, while none of the switches in any given subset are connected in a single hop to any of the switches in any other subset within the same set. Global links interconnect the sets of the switches, each global link connecting one switch in one of the sets to another switch in another one of the sets, such that each of the subsets in any given set of the switches is connected in a single hop by at least one global link to at least one of the subsets of every other set of the switches.