🤖 AI Summary
Datacenter networks (DCNs) face challenges from switch chip capacity constraints, buffer-induced latency, and control-plane complexity. Method: This paper proposes Fastpod—a zero-buffer architecture enabling collision-free, deterministic intra-Pod transmission under tight time synchronization. It employs centralized fine-grained packet scheduling and a coordination-free control plane to ensure scalability; introduces optimistic forward transmission to mitigate centralized control latency; and offloads intelligence to the network edge, establishing a “simplified core, enhanced edge” paradigm. Contribution/Results: Simulation results demonstrate 100% collision-free intra-Pod delivery, end-to-end latency competitive with conventional buffered DCNs, and seamless integration with buffered backbone layers. To our knowledge, Fastpod is the first architecture achieving zero-buffer, collision-free operation at the Pod level, thereby extending the design frontier of deterministic networking.
📝 Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the possibility of building a data center network (DCN) with simplified zero-buffer switches. It exposes a stringent requirement to the traffic control scheme to ensure perfect collision-free between packets. We find it is infeasible, if not impossible, to make a large-scale DCN completely zero buffering. We take a step back and propose Fastpod, a new data center architecture that enables zero buffering in pod scale, which can be expanded with buffered devices. With time synchronization, Fastpod avoids collisions by performing fine-grained centralized control on data packets and coordination-free scheduling on control packets. It leverages an optimistic sending mechanism to reduce the latency overhead induced by the centralized control. Our preliminary simulation results indicate that Fastpod successfully meets the requirement of collision-free in the zero-buffer pod and maintains similar performance with conventional buffered DCN. It follows the trend of simplifying the network by pushing the functionalities to the edge. Fastpod explores an extreme end of the design spectrum and can be treated as a thought experiment to raise discussion in the community of data center networks.
