1. A system comprising: a switching device including a first plurality of input/output (I/O) ports and a second plurality of I/O ports, wherein each port of the first plurality of I/O ports is electrically coupled to a pluggable transceiver socket configured to receive a cable connector; and a processing device including a plurality of transceivers electrically coupled to the second plurality of I/O ports; wherein the switching device is configured to receive, via a first I/O port of the first plurality of I/O ports, a first electric signal encoding one or more incoming data packets; wherein the switching device includes a control interface receiving programming logic incorporating a programmable port mapping scheme instructing the switching device to output the first electric signal to a second I/O port of the first plurality of I/O ports and to a third I/O port of the second plurality of I/O ports, in accordance with the programmable port mapping scheme; and wherein the processing device is configured to receive the first electric signal, and is programmed to output a second electric signal encoding one or more modified data packets derived from the incoming data packets, the processing device implementing a data compression algorithm to compress the incoming data packets and create the modified data packets, wherein the processing device transmits the modified data packets back to the switching device through at least one of the plurality of transceivers.