1-to-N and N-to-1 Communication for Optical Networks

Abstract

Efficient 1-to-N and N-to-1 communication benefits numerous data center applications that require group communication by reducing network traffic and improving application throughput. Meanwhile, optical interconnection networks are emerging as a key enabling technology for future data center networking. Optical networks not only support higher bit-rates through optical links, but can also dynamically reconfigure the network topology and link capacities through the optical switch, providing substantial flexibility to various traffic patterns. Currently, there exists limited support for efficient 1-to-N and N-to-1 routing that leverages the advanced features of optical networks. In this paper, we propose a set of algorithms to support 1-to-N and N-to-1 traffic flows in optical networks. We base our work on top of the Optical Switching Architecture (OSA). Through extensive analytical simulations, we show that the proposed algorithms are effective in minimizing the number of optical links used for 1-to-N traffic, while eliminating link bottlenecks for N-to-1 traffic.