Scalable OCS-based intra/inter data center network with optical ToR switches

Optically switched networks have potential for high scalability, low power-consumption and increased bandwidth capacity and are considered a promising solution to overcome the bottlenecks in traditional Data Center Networks (DCNs) powered by electronic switches. Even though the major share of power consumption occurs in the edge tier, most of the proposals for future DCNs have concentrated on optical switching in the core layer but designing an optical network that can interconnect a warehouse scale data center is still not fully feasible. In this paper, we propose an optical Top of Rack (ToR) switch that can substantially minimise energy consumption and can be interconnected within the DCN through a mega optical space switch (OSS), based on a non-blocking Clos network, which can satisfy future scalability demands. This architecture can connect servers through a combination of optical cross-connects and WDM rings and establish optical connections between servers in multiple DCNs in a metro area.