A ring network for transporting data packets between network devices is
provided. The ring network includes a number of ring switches. Each ring
switch has at least one ring port, at least one local port and at least
one table that self learns which network devices are associated with each
port of the ring switch based on a selected source identifier from the
packets processed by the ring switch. The source and destination
identifiers may, for example, be a media access control (MAC) address
from an Ethernet packet, an Internet Protocol (IP) address, at least a
portion of a hierarchical address, a combination of two or more
identifiers at different protocol levels for the data packet, a port
number of a universal datagram protocol, or other appropriate identifier.
The at least one ring port of each ring switch is coupled to a ring port
of another ring switch in the ring network. The ring switch switches data
packets between its ring and local ports to direct the data packets to
specified network devices associated with the at least one local port of
the ring switches in the ring network. The ports of the ring switches are
configured such that data packets received at the at least one ring port
and the at least one local port that are not destined for a network
device associated with the at least one local port of the ring switch are
switched to another ring switch on the ring network based on the at least
one table without the use of a token or encapsulating the packet.