system flexibility and ease - of - design is greatly enhanced in a network wireless / rfid switching device by using a multicore abstraction layer to interface between a multicore hardware platform , a device operating system and the packet transfer functions of the system . such an architecture may be particularly useful in constructing switches capable of switching wireless networking , rfid or other network protocols , particularly using multi - core processors . a classification handler initially classifies the data packet . a plurality of protocol handlers each associated with a data protocol processes the data packet if the classification of the data packet matches the data protocol associated with the protocol handler , and one of several application handlers each associated with a user applications processes the data packet if the classification of the data packet matches the user application associated with the application handler . the mcal is configured to send the data packet to the classification handler after the packet is initially received , and to subsequently direct the packet toward one of the protocol or application handlers in response to the classification of the data packet . mcal further contains a set of the containers for handlers . real application , protocol and classification handlers register with mcal and are modules developed outside of the mcal .