FiConn: Using Backup Port for Server Interconnection in Data Centers

Abstract— The goal of data center networking is to interconnect a large number of server machines with low equipment cost, high and balanced network capacity, and robustness to link/server faults. It is well understood that, the current practice where servers are connected by a tree hierarchy of network switches cannot meet these requirements [8], [9]. In this paper, we explore a new server-interconnection structure. We observe that the commodity server machines used in today’s data centers usually come with two built-in Ethernet ports, one for network connection and the other left for backup purpose. We believe that, if both ports are actively used in network connections, we can build a low-cost interconnection structure without the expensive higher-level large switches. Our new network design, called FiConn, utilizes both ports and only the low-end commodity switches to form a scalable and highly effective structure. Although the server node degree is only two in this structure, ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Dan Li, Chuanxiong Guo, Haitao Wu, Kun Tan, Songwu Lu
• Keywords: Communications, INFOCOM 2009, Network Connections, Routing Mechanisms, Server Machines