Abstract
With the continuously growing popularity of cloud services, the traffic volume inside the data centers is dramatically increasing. As a result, a scalable and efficient infrastructure for data center networks (DCNs) is required. The current optical DCNs using either individual fibers or fiber ribbons are costly, bulky, hard to manage, and not scalable. Spatial division multiplexing (SDM) based on multicore or multimode (few-mode) fibers is recognized as a promising technology to increase the spatial efficiency for optical DCNs, which opens a new way towards high capacity and scalability. This tutorial provides an overview of the components, transmission options, and interconnect architectures for SDM-based DCNs, as well as potential technical challenges and future directions. It also covers the co-existence of SDM and other multiplexing techniques, such as wavelength-division multiplexing and flexible spectrum multiplexing, in optical DCNs.
Highlights
DATA centers (DCs) are playing key roles in Internet service delivery for an ever-increasing number of customers and devices [1,2,3], which raise strict requirements on interconnection networks for DCs in terms of capacity, power consumption and latency
Compared to parallel optical fibers or fiber bundles/ribbons, multicore fiber (MCF), few-mode fiber (FMF), and a combination of both have shown a great potential to improve the spatial efficiency for future data center networks (DCNs)
From the transceiver point of view, a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) array has the advantages of simple integration with MCF and low cost
Summary
DATA centers (DCs) are playing key roles in Internet service delivery for an ever-increasing number of customers and devices [1,2,3], which raise strict requirements on interconnection networks for DCs in terms of capacity, power consumption and latency. Optical multiplexing techniques, such as spatial division multiplexing (SDM) and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), have been considered to increase the transmission capacity in DCNs. SDM uses the controllable arrangement of optical signals in the spatial domain. SDM uses the controllable arrangement of optical signals in the spatial domain It has a great potential for DCNs because it offers ultra-high capacity and good compatibility with WDM techniques. The parallel optical fibers and fiber bundles/ribbons are commonly deployed in commercial DCs. O-band coarse WDM techniques, e.g., 8×50Gbps for 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) interface [9], are commercially used in combination with the aforementioned SDM techniques for DCN interconnections to further increase the capacity [10].
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