1 - Data center architectures

Abstract

Data centers house the computational power, storage, networking, and software applications that form the basis of most modern business, academic, and government institutions. This chapter provides an overview of data center fundamentals, with particular emphasis on the role of optical data networking. The chapter begins with an introduction and brief history of data center design, followed by a discussion of environmental considerations including raised floors, fire suppression, energy consumption, and the role of containerized data centers. Industry standard data center classification tiers are presented. Application architectures are discussed, including client-server, peer-to-peer, high performance computing, and cloud computing infrastructure-as-a-service architectures. The physical architectures of Ethernet networked data centers are presented, including Layer 2 and Layer 3 design considerations (alternatives including Fibre Channel storage networks and InfiniBand are briefly mentioned). Network protocols are discussed, including ECMP, STP, transparent interconnect for lots of links (TRILL), shortest path bridging (SPB), and others, in the context of top-of-rack, middle-of-rack, leaf-spine, spline, and other topologies. Design considerations are discussed, including agility, flattened converged networks, virtualization, latency, oversubscription, energy efficiency, scalability, security, availability, and reliability (including database availability constructs). Finally, future design considerations for next generation data centers are presented, including software designed data centers, and the role of optical interconnects is presented, including industry roadmaps.