A system and methods of using commodity switches to produce a switch fabric are disclosed. The system is designed taking into considerations the limitations of typical commodity switches and the requirements of high availability. The system comprises a plurality of switches organized in tiers. Each switch comprises uplink switch ports and downlink switch ports. The switch is connected to switches in higher tiers via its uplink switch ports and to switches in lower tiers via its downlink switch ports. The switches in the lowest tier are connected to the devices external to the system via downlink switch ports. A management module may provide the capability of provisioning and configuring the switches. On each switch, at least one link aggregation is configured with the uplink switch ports. A packet received from any downlink switch port is forwarded to one of the at least one link aggregation of uplink switch ports. A packet received from any uplink switch port is forwarded according to the first label in the packet. Each switch in the highest tier is configured to insert one or more labels in a packet to be sent out via the switches. A value in a label indicates the switch port to be selected to send out the packet received at a switch.