Publication Data
High Performance Datacenter Networks: Architectures, Algorithms, and Opportunities
Abstract: Datacenter networks provide the communication substrate for
large parallel computer systems that form the ecosystem for high performance computing
(HPC) systems and modern Internet applications. The design of new datacenter networks
is motivated by an array of applications ranging from communication intensive
climatology, complex material simulations and molecular dynamics to such Internet
applications as Web search, language translation, collaborative Internet applications,
streaming video and voice-over-IP. For both Supercomputing and Cloud Computing the
network enables distributed applications to communicate and interoperate in an
orchestrated and efficient way. This book describes the design and engineering
tradeoffs of datacenter networks. It describes interconnection networks from topology
and network architecture to routing algorithms, and presents opportunities for taking
advantage of the emerging technology trends that are influencing router
microarchitecture. With the emergence of "many-core" processor chips, it is evident
that we will also need "many-port" routing chips to provide a bandwidth-rich network to
avoid the performance limiting effects of Amdahl's Law. We provide an overview of
conventional topologies and their routing algorithms and show how technology, signaling
rates and cost-effective optics are motivating new network topologies that scale up to
millions of hosts. The book also provides detailed case studies of two high performance
parallel computer systems and their networks.
