Efficient and fast contention resolution for AWGR based optical data center networks

Abstract

A packet contention resolution scheme featuring efficient bandwidth utilization (CRSebu) is proposed for arrayed waveguide grating router (AWGR)-based optical data centers (DCNs). Optical bandwidth can be efficiently provided in this proposed scheme to adapt the burst network traffic by flexibly arranging the timeslot and wavelength. Moreover, the CRSebu scheme implements a “Dislocation Pipeline” strategy to prevent the conventional “Request-Grant” scheduling caused extra traffic waiting delay. Experimental investigations prove the CRSebu scheme can completely prevent packet contention and also improves the network performance in terms of packet loss and server-to-server latency due to the high bandwidth utilization. Numerical assessments also validate the excellent scalability of this proposed contention resolution scheme in large-scale AWGR-based DCNs. Compared with the typical OPSquare structure deploying an Optical Flow Control scheme to prevent packet contention, the CRSebu-equipped optical DCN eliminates the retransmission of conflicted packets, which significantly improves the network performance. Experimental investigations prove the proposed CRSebu strategy can completely prevent packet contention. Numerical assessments show that the network deployed with the CRSebu scheme decreases 73.6% packet loss, and 11.9% server-to-server latency compared with the static scheme.