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Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Hybrid flow data center network architecture design and analysis

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

In this thesis, we propose a hybrid flow network architecture for future data center. The hybrid flow architecture has its origins in the early 1990s with studies on all-optical networks and fiber-optical computer networks. Research in optical flow switching has spanned over two decades. Our contribution to the study of all-optical networks is on the performance of hybrid flow data center networks. We compare the delay performance of hybrid flow architectures and traditional packet switched networks in future data center. We present a simplified data center traffic model, where data center traffic is categorized into mice traffic and elephant flows. The electronic packet switched architecture allows for low overhead and complexity for small transactions. However, mice traffic suffers as the size, fraction, and arrival rates of elephant flows increase. In the hybrid flow architecture, elephant flows are transmitted on an all-optical flow-switched data plane, where wavelength channels are reserved for the duration of a flow. In addition, the hybrid flow architecture allows for the dynamic allocation of optical wavelengths. In electronic packet switched networks, wavelength assignments are static, where traditional networking protocols do not consider the optical domain in routing decisions. We show that the hybrid flow architecture allows for superior delay performance compared to the electronic packet switched architecture as data rates and data volume increase in future data center networks.

Degree

thesis:*
Department dc:contributor.department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Grantor dc:publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Year dc:date.issued
2017

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Huang, Henna Priscilla
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Vincent W.S. Chan.

Subjects

dc:subject × 1

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.
Language dc:language.iso
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/108998
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/108998

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
MIT
Base URL
dspace.mit.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Huang, Henna Priscilla. Hybrid flow data center network architecture design and analysis. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/108998