A Highly Scalable Network Architecture for Optical Data Centers

Optical Data Center Networks (ODCNs) are high-performance interconnect architectures in parallel and distributed computing, providing higher bandwidth and lower power consumption. However, current optical DCNs struggle to achieve both high scalability and incremental scalability simultaneously. In this paper, we propose an extended Exchanged hyperCube, denoted by ExCube, which is a highly scalable network architecture for optical data centers. Firstly, we detail the address scheme and constructing method for ExCube, including exponential, linear, and composite scalability, which can adapt to different scalability requirements. ExCube boasts flexible scalability modes, including exponential, linear, and composite scalability, meeting diverse scalability requirements. In particular, the diameter of ExCube remains unchanged as its size increases linearly, indicating superior incremental scalability. Secondly, an efficient routing algorithm with linear time complexity is presented to determine the shortest path between any two different ToRs in ExCube. Additionally, we propose a per-flow scheduling algorithm based on the disjoint paths to enhance the performance of ExCube. The optical devices in ExCube are identical to those in existing optical DCNs, such as WaveCube and OSA, facilitating its construction. Experimental results demonstrate that ExCube outperforms WaveCube in terms of throughput and reduces data transmission time by 5%-35%. Further analysis reveals that ExCube maintains comparable performance to WaveCube across several critical metrics, including low diameter and link complexity. Compared with advanced networks, the overall cost-effectiveness and energy efficiency of ExCube have been reduced by 36.7% and 46.5%, respectively.