US Patent 7120834 Fast port failover in a network switch

A network switch, method and computer program product. The network switch comprises a plurality of ports each adapted to exchange frames of data with one or more network devices; a transfer circuit adapted to transfer the frames of the data between the ports; and wherein at least one of the ports comprises a loopback circuit adapted to send to the transfer circuit, when the one of the ports is not operational, each frame of the data received by the one of the ports from the transfer circuit, and a redirect circuit adapted to cause the transfer circuit to transfer, to one or more predetermined others of the ports, when the one of the ports is not operational, each frame of the data received by the transfer circuit from the one of the ports.