A novel approach to optically switching inter-pod traffic in datacenters

In this paper, we propose and evaluate a novel approach to switching traffic between the pods (or containers) of servers all optically. We show that the proposed approach, called Labeled Optical Burst Switching with Home Circuit (or LOBS-HC) requires a fewer wavelengths (and transceivers) than existing approaches based on wavelength routing or optical circuit switching (OCS). In addition, it is also more suitable than optical burst switching (OBS) and electronic switching. Simulation results from OPNET confirm that LOBS-HC achieves good performance for dynamic inter-pod traffic that is common in a datacenter.