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The Hi-Ring Architecture for Data Center Networks

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Optical Switching in Next Generation Data Centers

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Abstract

Optical technologies have long been used for standard telecom applications ranging from long haul to metro and access networks. With the rapid expansion of traffic in data center networks, the deployment of optical technologies for computationally intensive short reach networking has attracted a lot of attention. The main interest in photonics comes from the fact that optical technologies are known for providing high bandwidth at low-cost and low power consumption. Unlike electrical switching, optical switching offers bit rate-independent operation; thus, the required processing capacity can greatly be reduced as there is no need to perform operations like electrical demultiplexing of high-speed data streams. Moreover, simultaneous switching of wavelength channels using an optical circuit switch yields energy-efficient operation, which is crucial to data centers.

Replacing the existing networking infrastructure with an architecture based on optical technologies is not straightforward. The full set of functionalities offered by electrical switching cannot simply be replaced with optical switching. The lack of a viable optical buffering technology has shown to be detrimental to the adoption of optical packet switching. Thus, novel control concepts have to be devised, attributing to a new optical subwavelength switching paradigm. Moreover, industry requirements dictate that further development of optical technologies is essential to deployment. The main challenges are addressing insertion loss by incorporating optical amplification, optimizing cross talk performance, and using photonic integration as a means to provide low-footprint and low-cost integrated systems.

In this chapter, the proposed Hi-Ring data center architecture will be reviewed, and initial performance evaluation results will be presented. An overview will be given of the control aspects of the proposed optical subwavelength switching including synchronization and practical aspects of its realization. Finally, the role of silicon photonics in datacom will be reviewed, and a novel photonic integrated circuit (PIC) will be presented, paving the way for the application of silicon photonic devices in data center networks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DTU Fotonik, Technical University of Denmark, Ørsteds Plads 343, 340, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Valerija Kamchevska, Yunhong Ding, Michael S. Berger, Lars Dittmann, Leif K. Oxenløwe & Michael Galili

Authors
  1. Valerija Kamchevska
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  2. Yunhong Ding
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  3. Michael S. Berger
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  4. Lars Dittmann
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  5. Leif K. Oxenløwe
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  6. Michael Galili
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Valerija Kamchevska .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ericsson Research, Pisa, Italy

    Francesco Testa

  2. Department of Physics, Nanoscience Lab, University of Trento, Povo, Trento, Italy

    Lorenzo Pavesi

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Kamchevska, V., Ding, Y., Berger, M.S., Dittmann, L., Oxenløwe, L.K., Galili, M. (2018). The Hi-Ring Architecture for Data Center Networks. In: Testa, F., Pavesi, L. (eds) Optical Switching in Next Generation Data Centers. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61052-8_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61052-8_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61051-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-61052-8

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