Integrated switch for dynamic orchestration of traffic

1. A network element, comprising:

an ingress switch, configured to provide bi-directional routing of a packet, wherein the packet contains a special purpose table having entries that are configured such that incoming packet traffic, arriving at the ingress switch through an externally facing ingress switch port, is provided with directional information to associate an ingress switch server-facing port with at least one of a plurality of servers and the ingress switch;

an egress switch, configured to provide bi-directional routing of the packet, wherein the packet contains the special purpose table having entries that are configured such that incoming packet traffic, arriving at the egress switch through an externally facing egress switch port, is provided with directional information to associate an egress switch server-facing port with at least one of a plurality of servers and the ingress switch;

a plurality of servers in communication with the ingress and egress switches;

a first switching engine, in the ingress switch, wherein the special-purpose table is within the first switching engine and is configured to provide data packets at the master switch with directional information to associate a server-facing port on the master switch with one of the plurality of servers, wherein the first switching engine further includes a packet forwarding table configured to map a unique value to one of a plurality of server-facing ports of the master switch, plurality of server-facing ports being connected to a server port; and

a second switching engine in the egress switch,

wherein the first and second switching engines are configured to modify policy header information in the special purpose table of said packet to direct packet traffic received from client systems, or from other network elements, along with the modified policy header information, to one or more of the servers, and

wherein the plurality of servers are configured to further modify policy header information in the special purpose table of said packet to:

return said packet with said further modified policy header information back to the ingress switch if said packet was received by the ingress switch, and

return said packet with said further modified policy header information back to the egress switch if said packet was received by the egress switch.

2. The network element of claim 1 , wherein the switching engine is configured to modify policy header information by changing a destination media access control (MAC) address in said packet to a server MAC address corresponding to the server of the one or more servers to which said packet is directed.

3. The network element of claim 2 , wherein the plurality of servers are configured to modify policy header information by changing the destination MAC address from the server MAC address to a MAC address of a switch, client system or network element.

4. The network element of claim 1 , wherein the switching engine is configured to modify policy header information by adding, removing, or changing a VLAN identifier tag to encode application specific information pertaining to traffic manipulation rules.

5. The network element of claim 4 , wherein the plurality of servers are configured to modify policy header information by adding, removing, or changing the VLAN identifier tag to encode traffic forwarding rules other than the destination of said packet.

6. The network element of claim 1 , including an inter-switch network link in communication between the ingress switch and the egress switch.

7. The network element of claim 1 , wherein the first and second switching engines are configured to maintain server state.

8. The network element of claim 7 , wherein the slave switch is configured to orchestrate packet traffic to the plurality of servers based on which servers of the plurality of servers correspond with sources of data packets received through the master switch.