Empirical model for combinatorial data center network switch design

TL;DR

This paper presents an empirical model for designing optical data center network switches using a combinatorial approach, focusing on component interconnections and bit-error-rate support, enabling theoretical evaluation of designs.

Contribution

It introduces an empirical model based on experimental analysis to evaluate optical component interconnections for data center networks, facilitating theoretical design assessments.

Findings

Bit-error-rate can be predicted using a zeroth-order optical power threshold.

Experimental analysis supports the model's effectiveness in design evaluation.

The model enables theoretical analysis of complex optical network configurations.

Abstract

Data centers require high-performance network equipment that consume low power and support high bandwidth requirements. In this context, a combinatorial approach was proposed to design data center network (DCN) equipment from a library of components in \cite{infocom}. This library includes power splitter, wavelength multiplexers, reconfigurable add-drop multiplexers and optical amplifiers. When interconnecting optical components, it must be ensured that the resultant network supports specified target bit-error-rates (typically, at most $10^{-12}$). This paper reports experiment conducted on component interconnections and their computed bit-error-rates. From the experimental analysis, it was observed that the desired objective can be decided by considering a zeroth-order threshold for optical power at the receiver and before the amplifier. This paves way for the theoretical evaluation of several other such designs using this empirically derived model.