A Universal Approach to Data Center Network Design

Abstract

This paper proposes an approach to the design of large-scale general-purpose data center networks based on the notions of volume and area universality introduced by Leiserson in the 1980's in the context of VLSI design. In particular, we suggest that the principle goal of the network designer should be to build a single network that is provably competitive, for any application, with any network that can be built for the same amount of money. After describing our approach, we survey the technology choices available to network designers today, and examine several existing commercial data center networks. In the most recent of these networks resources are allocated roughly as we suggest in this paper.