A Hybrid Packet/Circuit Optical Transport Architecture for DCN

The aim of this paper is to move away from today's multi-tier, manually operated, and performance limited Data Centre Network (DCN) towards more scalable, flexible, and optimized architecture of tomorrow. We propose a new hybrid optical DCN architecture capable of providing a fully optical interconnection path from server to server within and between racks utilizing fast packet switching at the aggregation layer and high-capacity and low latency circuit switching at the core layer. We have built the DCN control plane upon the Software Defined Networks (SDN) paradigm to leverage the added value of emerging optical technologies for providing flexible and programmable heterogeneous IT and network services. Dynamicity, flexibility, and resiliency are combined in the proposed infrastructure to offer advanced services to the data centre providers in order to fulfil the requirements of the upcoming applications.