High Performance Datacenter Networks

Book excerpt: 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. --Book Jacket.