Flexible Interconnection of Scalable Systems Integrated Using Optical Networks (FISSION) Data-Center—Concepts and Demonstration

Abstract

With Internet traffic doubling almost every other year, data-center (DC) scalability is destined to play a critical role in enabling future communications. While many DC architectures are proposed to tackle this issue by leveraging optics in DCs, most fail to scale efficiently. We demonstrate flexible interconnection of scalable systems integrated using optical networks (FISSION), which is a scalable, fault-tolerant DC architecture based on a switchless optical-bus backplane and carrier-class switches. The FISSION DC can scale to a large number of servers (even up to 1 million servers) using off-the-shelf optics and commodity electronics. Its backplane comprises multiple, concentric bus-based fiber rings to create a switch-less core. Sectors, which constitute top-of-the-rack switches along with server interconnection pods, are connected to this switchless backplane in a unique opto-electronic architectural framework to handle contention. The FISSION protocol uses segment-routing paradigms for use within the DC as well as an SDN-based standardized carrier-class protocol. In this paper, we highlight, through three use cases, a FISSION test-bed, and show its feasibility in a realistic setting. These use cases include communication within the FISSION DC, in situ addition deletion of servers at scale and equal-cost multipath (ECMP) provisioning.