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The Role of Photonics in Future Datacenter Networks

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Optical Interconnects for Future Data Center Networks

Part of the book series: Optical Networks ((OPNW))

Abstract

The datacenter today is almost everybody’s other computer. The primary computer is increasingly a mobile device such as a smart phone, tablet, or laptop. The bulk of both the computing and the storage is done in the datacenter since the mobile devices are energy constrained. Datacenters vary in both the size and the performance of the constituent components. They vary from large-scale supercomputers, through warehouse scale installations supporting social networking, cloud services, etc. to smaller scale enterprise or university installations. In 2011, 2% of the US energy consumption went to support this computing model and the growth in both the number and size of datacenter installations leads to an alarming energy consumption scenario. This chapter focuses on the potential role of optical/photonic communication technology and the impact that this technology may have on future energy-efficient datacenters.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. HP Labs, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    Al Davis, Norman P. Jouppi, Naveen Muralimanohar & Robert S. Schreiber

  2. HP Labs, Bristol, UK

    Moray McLaren

  3. nou data, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    Nathan Binkert

  4. Seoul National University, Seoul, korea

    Jung-Ho Ahn

Authors
  1. Al Davis
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  2. Norman P. Jouppi
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  3. Moray McLaren
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  4. Naveen Muralimanohar
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  5. Robert S. Schreiber
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  6. Nathan Binkert
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  7. Jung-Ho Ahn
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Al Davis .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Networks and Optical Communications Lab, Athens Information Technology, Peania, Greece

    Christoforos Kachris

  2. , Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, 10027, USA

    Keren Bergman

  3. , Networks and Optical Communications Lab, Athens Information Technology, Peania, Greece

    Ioannis Tomkos

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Davis, A. et al. (2013). The Role of Photonics in Future Datacenter Networks. In: Kachris, C., Bergman, K., Tomkos, I. (eds) Optical Interconnects for Future Data Center Networks. Optical Networks. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4630-9_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4630-9_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-4629-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-4630-9

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