4-4, 1-4: Architecture for Data Center Network Based on IP Address Hierarchy for Efficient Routing

Architecture plays an important role in the design of Data Center Networks (DCN). Designs for DCN are to be scalable, robust and efficient. There are many designs proposed in recent years where routing is performed using location information of the server. These designs solve scalability problem of IP and Ethernet with additional overhead of determining and maintaining location information of the server. In this paper, we propose a new architecture named, four-four, one-four architecture (4-4, 1-4 Architecture) that has evolved from the format of IP address. Addressing and interconnection used in our design eliminate the complexities in the previous designs such as constructing addresses based on location information. Two major benefits - reduction of entries in routing table and routing based on location information - are achieved through our design with minimum complexity. The first advantage is due to the design combining servers with common prefixes at each level using hierarchical format of IP address. The second advantage is due to the IP address assigned to servers and switches acting as location indicator. This helps in faster routing where packet forwarding is done based on the bits of IP addresses. Further, the proposed architecture meets major design requirements for data center networks such as load balancing and energy conservation.