A switching network for efficiently receiving and transmitting data packets having both frames and messages includes a crossbar switch with a plurality of surrounding ports for exclusively switching frames which normally consist of large data streams of 40 to 60 bytes. Then the ports are connected together in a message ring and small data entity messages, for example 4, 8, or 12 bytes, are switched from an input port to an output port around the ring avoiding congestion of the crossbar switch.