Apparatus and method for protection in a data center

摘要

A manner of providing redundancy protection for a data center network that is both reliable and low-cost. In a data center network where the data traffic between numerous access nodes and a network core layer via primary aggregation nodes, an optical network device such as and OLT (optical line terminal) is provided as a backup aggregation node for one or more of the primary aggregation nodes. When a communication path through a primary aggregation node fails, traffic is routed through the optical network device. In a preferred embodiment, a communication link is formed from a plurality of access nodes to a single port of the OLT or other optical network device via an optical splitter that combines upstream transmissions and distributes downstream transmissions. The upstream transmissions from the plurality of access nodes may occur according to an allocation schedule generated when the backup aggregation node is needed.

主权项

1. A data center comprising:
a plurality of primary aggregator nodes, each aggregator node in communication with a separate grouping of a plurality of top-of-rack, access nodes in a data center; one or more backup aggregator nodes, each of the backup aggregator nodes comprising an OLT (optical line terminal, wherein each backup aggregator node is coupled to at least two primary aggregator nodes; a plurality of top-of-rack, access nodes in the data center, each access node associated with one of the primary aggregator nodes and also associated with one of the backup OLT aggregator nodes; and at least one data center core router in the data center, wherein the OLT is configured to perform layer 2 switching for aggregating data traffic between the plurality of top-of-rack, access nodes and the core router in the data center upon a communication failure with one of the primary aggregator nodes.