REWIRE: An optimization-based framework for unstructured data center network design

TLDR: A data center network design framework, that is called REWIRE, to design networks using an optimization algorithm, which significantly outperforms previous solutions and has up to 100-500% more bisection bandwidth and less end-to-end network latency than equivalent-cost DCNs built with best practices.

Abstract: Despite the many proposals for data center network (DCN) architectures, designing a DCN remains challenging. DCN design is especially difficult when expanding an existing network, because traditional DCN design places strict constraints on the topology (e.g., a fat-tree). Recent advances in routing protocols allow data center servers to fully utilize arbitrary networks, so there is no need to require restricted, regular topologies in the data center. Therefore, we propose a data center network design framework, that we call REWIRE, to design networks using an optimization algorithm. Our algorithm finds a network with maximal bisection bandwidth and minimal end-to-end latency while meeting user-defined constraints and accurately modeling the predicted cost of the network. We evaluate REWIRE on a wide range of inputs and find that it significantly outperforms previous solutions—its network designs have up to 100–500% more bisection bandwidth and less end-to-end network latency than equivalent-cost DCNs built with best practices.