Method and system for providing fault tolerance in a network

A configurable switching fabric port is disclosed having, in a particular configuration. A first interface that employs port interface resources and leaves at least one interface resource dormant and a second interface utilizing the dormant resource. One particular fault non-tolerant architecture, the RapidIO System, is specifically addressed. One implementation of this system incorporates transmission and reception ports configurable as 16 and 8 bit interfaces. In the 8-bit configuration, an 8-bit interface incorporates the least significant 8-bits of signal resources. Further, in the reduced, or 8-bit configuration, the most significant port interface resources of the 16 bit port are surplus.