In a computer system, a bridge element enabled module (102) includes a bridge element (106) that communicates with a communications network using a protocol (130) selected from a group of protocols (105) including an 2eSST protocol (480). The bridge element enabled module (102) also includes a first host element (180) coupled to the bridge element (106), with the bridge element (106) conirnunicating with the first host element (108) using one a PCI-X based protocol (128) and a switched point-to-point protocoi (132)