A heterogeneous and scalable bridge capable of translating a plurality of network protocols is adapted for coupling to a network switch fabric. The bridge uses at least one egress buffer interface and can perform port aggregation and bandwidth matching for various different port standards. The bridge is adapted for both networking and storage area networking protocols. A control unit is implemented with the bridge is able to identify control and flow information from different protocols and adapt them to the respective interface to which they are to be transmitted.