Abstract

With the continuously growing popularity of cloud services, the traffic volume inside the data centers is dramatically increasing. As a result, a scalable and efficient infrastructure for data center networks (DCNs) is required. The current optical DCNs using either individual fibers or fiber ribbons are costly, bulky, hard to manage, and not scalable. Spatial division multiplexing (SDM) based on multicore or multimode (few-mode) fibers is recognized as a promising technology to increase the spatial efficiency for optical DCNs, which opens a new way towards high capacity and scalability. This tutorial provides an overview of the components, transmission options, and interconnect architectures for SDM-based DCNs, as well as potential technical challenges and future directions. It also covers the co-existence of SDM and other multiplexing techniques, such as wavelength-division multiplexing and flexible spectrum multiplexing, in optical DCNs.

Spatial Division Multiplexing for High Capacity Optical Interconnects in Modular Data Centers

Matteo Fiorani, Massimo Tornatore, Jiajia Chen, Lena Wosinska, and Biswanath Mukherjee
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 9(2) A143-A153 (2017)

Space-Division Multiplexing in Data Center Networks: On Multi-Core Fiber Solutions and Crosstalk-Suppressed Resource Allocation

Hui Yuan, Marija Furdek, Ajmal Muhammad, Arsalan Saljoghei, Lena Wosinska, and Georgios Zervas
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 10(4) 272-288 (2018)

Advanced Space Division Multiplexing Technologies for Optical Networks [Invited]

Werner Klaus, Benjamin J. Puttnam, Ruben S. Luís, Jun Sakaguchi, José-Manuel Delgado Mendinueta, Yoshinari Awaji, and Naoya Wada
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 9(4) C1-C11 (2017)

Network Performance Trade-Off in Modular Data Centers With Optical Spatial Division Multiplexing

Li Yan, Matteo Fiorani, Ajmal Muhammad, Massimo Tornatore, Erik Agrell, and Lena Wosinska
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 10(9) 796-808 (2018)

Survey of Photonic Switching Architectures and Technologies in Support of Spatially and Spectrally Flexible Optical Networking [Invited]

Dan M. Marom, Paul D. Colbourne, Antonio D’Errico, Nicolas K. Fontaine, Yuichiro Ikuma, Roberto Proietti, Liangjia Zong, José M. Rivas-Moscoso, and Ioannis Tomkos
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 9(1) 1-26 (2017)