HUBER+SUHNER White Paper – An Answer to Data Center Bandwidth Challenges

Current data center network architectures cannot scale to meet the demands created by the proliferation of bandwidth-hungry mobile data applications and the associated rapid increase of internal (East-West) traffic volumes. The trend toward multi-tenant and disaggregated virtual data centers creates further challenges in provisioning Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Operators need more capacity in the same footprint together with the flexibility to allocate resources dynamically when, and to where, they are needed most. While optical interconnects are widely deployed to provide high speed transmission between processing elements in the data center, switching is still performed electronically, with fiber layer connectivity remaining mainly static.

Recent developments in all-optical circuit switching in combination with Software Defined Network (SDN) paradigms create compelling solutions to bring the fiber layer under software control. These solutions can provide dynamic, low-loss connectivity on demand between many thousands of endpoints with speed-of-light data latency. SDN integrates the management of fiber-layer (Layer 0/1) optical circuit switches and conventional Layer 2/3 packet switches and routers under a common control plane to facilitate abstraction and virtualization of network resources. By augmenting network designs with SDN-enabled dynamic fiber cross-connects, operators can create scalable solutions that respond dynamically to changing business needs while reducing operational costs by automating service provisioning and bypassing bottlenecks.

This White Paper highlights trends in software-defined data center network architectures and the new capabilities that are realized with SDN-enabled low-loss all-optical switching solutions.