MEMS-based optical links reconfigure data centres on the fly
Their paper “Novel architecture for reconfigurable optical wireless networking data centers” published in the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Newsroom highlights the need for flexible and adaptive network fabric in data centres while offering a lightweight and efficient solution without overprovisioning wired links.
Circumventing complex static cabling schemes, the researchers envision a network architecture that uses free-space optics communication links to create an all-wireless inter-rack fabric capable of supporting data rates in the tens of gigabit/s across large computer farms (with distances over 100m). According to the authors, the novel architecture dubbed FireFly would combine the benefits of having a low transmission power and a small interference footprint.
In the FireFly architecture, each top-of-rack (ToR) switch would have steerable free-space optical links able to connect to other ToRs, flexibly, to adapt the network to changing traffic workloads.
To prove the feasibility of their concept, the researchers have built a proof-of-concept prototype consisting of MEMS mirrors (capable of a 10º optical deflection) steering a collimated laser beam through a wide-angle lens (magnifying the optical scan angle to over 30°). This steering mechanism draws less than 1mW and operates at up to 1.2kHz.
assembly used to realize steerable FSO beams.
The researchers also developed practical heuristics to address the algorithmic and system-level challenges in the network design and management of such an architecture. They acknowledge that they’ll need specific algorithmic techniques to make these flexible networks a reality, including algorithms for the joint optimization problem of runtime topology selection and traffic engineering, as well as data-plane mechanisms to guarantee various consistency and performance requirements.
They are now busy building a small testbed for the FireFly architecture, including auto-alignment through the use of galvanometers and MEMS steering technologies.
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