A flat data center architecture based on optical switches with fast flow control

The performance of a new flat data center network (DCN) architecture top of rack (ToR) connected flatten (TCF) was investigated based on distributed buffer-less optical switches and fast flow control. Scalability of DCN is assessed by numerical simulation with objective modular network testbed in C++ (OMNeT++) discrete event simulator, while the average latency, packet loss and throughput of the system are obtained under different traffic patterns, different traffic distributions and various buffer sizes. It demonstrates that TCF based on distributed buffer-less optical switches not only has good latency characteristic and system throughput, but also has fine scalability and cost efficiency.