100GbE and beyond for warehouse scale computing interconnects

Increasing broadband penetration in the last few years has resulted in a dramatic growth in innovative, bandwidth-intensive applications that have been embraced by the consumers. Coupled with this consumer trend is the migration from local compute/storage model to a cloud computing paradigm. As computation and storage continues to move from desktops to large internet services, computing platforms running such services are transforming into warehouse scale computers. 100 Gigabit Ethernet and beyond will be instrumental in scaling the interconnection within and between these ubiquitous warehouse scale computing infrastructures. In this paper, we describe the drivers for such interfaces and some methods of scaling Ethernet interfaces to speeds beyond 100GbE.

► As computation moves into the cloud, the computing platforms are no longer stand-alone servers but warehouse-scale computers. ► New internet applications such as cloud computing and CDN are now reshaping the network landscape. ► In warehouse scale computing infrastructure, interconnections are aggregated with hierarchies of switching fabrics. ► Intra-datacenter connections can take advantage of a fiber-rich physical layer. ► Fiber-scarce inter-datacenter connections will drive the adoption of 100GbE and beyond in the massive WSC environments.