FIG. 9 is a flow chart that illustrates a method for selecting an egress port from a list of egress ports to send a data cell, according to an embodiment. At 910, a list of status indicators associated with egress port indicators and a destination indicator can be accessed, where the list of status indicators includes a set of status indicators having a first value. Specifically, after a data cell is received at a switch module, a schedule module operatively coupled to the switch module can be configured to access a status indicator list. Each status indicator from the status indicator list is associated with an egress port indicator, which uniquely identifies an egress port of the switch module. The status indictor list is associated with a destination indicator, which can be determined from a destination identifier retrieved from the data cell. Furthermore, each status indicator from the status indicator list has a value, which is used to indicate the availability of the egress port associated with the status indicator for sending a data cell. Particularly, a set of status indicators from the status indicator list have a first value, which indicates the egress ports associated with this set of status indicators are available for sending a data cell.
