In general, techniques are described for automatically configuring fiber cross-connects between customers of an interconnection facility. In some examples, a programmable network platform for an interconnection facility exposes an interface by which customers of the interconnection system provider may request fiber cross-connects to other customers of the interconnection system provider. The programmable network platform may, in response to a request for a fiber cross-connect, configure an optical switch fabric of the interconnection facility network infrastructure to create a fiber cross-connect between the demarcation points for the customers to be interconnected.

The present disclosure describes a network including two levels of switching: a first level including wavelength selective switching via a first type of switching module, and a second level including fiber level switching via a second type of switching module. The two levels of switching allow for maintaining wavelength selective switching between transmission directions while introducing fiber selective switching between network degrees of the same transmission direction. The first type of switching module is configured to transmit and receive optical signals having a first set of wavelengths at a first network degree at a first direction in a node of a network. The second type of switching module is configured to transmit and receive the optical signals from the first type of switching module and route the optical signals at the first network degree to a second network degree in a second direction.

Hybrid dilated Benes photonic switching architectures employ an arrangement of two-by-one (2?1) photonic and two-by-two (2?2) photonic elements to enjoy improved cross-talk performance while maintaining moderate cell counts. A jumpsuit switch optical network node architecture comprising multiple stages may operate more efficiently than single stage switching fabrics, by enabling manipulation of connectivity in some stages to achieve load balancing over other stages. Specifically, a first stage of switching fabrics connected to input ports of the optical node may be manipulated to load balance incoming signals over a second stage of switching fabrics coupled to output ports of the optical node. Additionally, a third stage of switching fabrics connected to add ports of the optical node may be manipulated to load balance added optical signals over the second stage of switching fabrics.

In general, techniques are described for automatically configuring fiber cross-connects between customers of an interconnection facility. In some examples, a programmable network platform for an interconnection facility exposes an interface by which customers of the interconnection system provider may request fiber cross-connects to other customers of the interconnection system provider. The programmable network platform may, in response to a request for a fiber cross-connect, configure an optical switch fabric of the interconnection facility network infrastructure to create a fiber cross-connect between the demarcation points for the customers to be interconnected.

A communication network that employs a plurality of multi-endpoint (MEP) optical transceivers in a leaf (or functionally similar) layer thereof. The use of MEP optical transceivers enables the communication network to support a pair of parallel paths for any source/destination pair of network nodes. In an example configuration, data packets that flow through one of the parallel paths go from the source node to the destination node via an electronic packet switch in the network's spine layer. Data packets that flow through another one of the parallel paths go from the source node to the destination node via an optical cross-connect switch. In operation, a network controller may dynamically select which one of the parallel paths to enable for each particular source/destination pair of network nodes, with the selection being made, e.g., based on the data volume to be transmitted between the two nodes.

In general, techniques are described for automatically configuring fiber cross-connects between customers of an interconnection facility. In some examples, a programmable network platform for an interconnection facility exposes an interface by which customers of the interconnection system provider may request fiber cross-connects to other customers of the interconnection system provider. The programmable network platform may, in response to a request for a fiber cross-connect, configure an optical switch fabric of the interconnection facility network infrastructure to create a fiber cross-connect between the demarcation points for the customers to be interconnected.

Embodiments are provided for scalable photonic packet fabric architectures using photonic integrated circuit switches. The architectures use compact size silicon photonic circuits that can be arranged in a combined centralized and distributed manner. In an embodiment, an optical switch structure comprises a plurality of core photonic based switches and a plurality of photonic interface units (PIUs) optically coupled to the core photonic based switches and to a plurality of groups of top-of-rack switches (TORs). Each PIU comprises a NN silicon photonic (SiP) switch optically coupled to a group of TORs associated with the PIU from the groups of TORs, where N is a number of the TORs in each group. The PIU also comprises a plurality of 1P SiP switches coupled to the group of TORs associated with the PIU and to the core photonic based switches, where P is a number of the core photonic based switches.

We disclose a communication network that employs a plurality of multi-endpoint (MEP) optical transceivers in a leaf (or functionally similar) layer thereof. The use of MEP optical transceivers enables the communication network to support a pair of parallel paths for any source/destination pair of network nodes. In an example configuration, data packets that flow through one of the parallel paths go from the source node to the destination node via an electronic packet switch in the network's spine layer. Data packets that flow through another one of the parallel paths go from the source node to the destination node via an optical cross-connect switch. In operation, a network controller may dynamically select which one of the parallel paths to enable for each particular source/destination pair of network nodes, with the selection being made, e.g., based on the data volume to be transmitted between the two nodes.

A hybrid optical electronic mapper-shuffler-reducer structure is presented to enhance the interconnection of current multi-dimensional direct networks. The physically intrinsic multicast design of the hybrid optical electronic mapper-shuffler-reducer structure of the present disclosure naturally supports parallel traffic modes such as multicast, broadcast and newly developed incast, while easily supporting point-to-point traffic. By scaling up this architecture, using a simple multi-dimensional topology, a remarkably massive network can be achieved with only 3 hops end-to-end latency. Compared to other multi-dimensional direct networks, the latency is substantially improved and is also made more uniform.

A method for generating a switch fabric topology, comprising constructing a first switch fabric topology, modifying the first switch fabric topology to generate a second switch fabric topology, wherein modifying the first switch fabric topology comprises isolating center stage sets of the first switch fabric topology, and replacing each of the isolated center stage sets with a single switching element to generate the second switch fabric topology, wherein is an integer representing a radix of the switching element determined in connection with the constructing of the first switch fabric topology.