Multiple petabit-per-second switching system based on orthogonal formations of sets of access nodes

摘要

A switching system having a number of nodes interfacing with external network elements and interconnected through independent switches is disclosed. The network may serve as a large-scale data center or a geographically distributed network. The nodes are arranged into a number of formations. Within each formation, the nodes are divided into a number of disjoint sets of nodes. The nodes of each set of nodes are interconnected through a respective switch and are selected so that each set of nodes of any formation is orthogonal to each set of nodes of each other formation. With such a structure, each node has a set of routes to each other node, each route of which traversing at most two switches. The switching system may grow in both capacity and coverage without disturbing an already installed configuration. A switching system of an access capacity of multiple petabits/sec and large coverage is thus realizable.

主权项

1. A switching system comprising:
a plurality of switches arranged into a number of switch groups, each switch group containing a respective number of switches; a plurality of nodes, each node connecting to one switch in each switch group so that:
each switch of said plurality of switches connects to a respective number of nodes of said plurality of nodes; anda set of nodes connecting to any switch of any switch group is orthogonal to a set of nodes connecting to any switch of any other switch group; said each node comprising a respective node controller having a node processor; and said each switch comprising a respective switch controller having a switch processor communicatively coupled to node processors of said respective number of nodes.