A data center path switch architecture permits path switching of the signal path of incoming signals to one or more output paths in real time without the need for manual intervention, and without delays associated with current data center network switches. In this architecture, a switching core capable of switching signals directly from the ingress of the switching core to alternate destination ports in real time, either under software or hardware control.

A non-blocking NN photonic switch may be augmented with additional inputs and outputs to make use of the excess switch capacity. An augmented photonic switch comprises an NN non-blocking switching core connected between 2N inputs and 2N outputs.

Routing connections evenly through each plane of a multi-plane switch can reduce crosstalk in a switch. The routing of the connections can be parallelized in order to provide high speed routing of the connections.

An L-dimensional optoelectronic switch for transferring an optical signal from an input device to an output device, the optoelectronic switch includes: a plurality of leaf switches, each having a radix R, and arranged in an L-dimensional array, in which each dimension has a respective size R, (1=1, 2, . . . , L), each leaf switch having an associated L-tuple of co-ordinates (x.sub.1, . . . , x.sub.L) giving its location with respect to each of the L dimensions; wherein each leaf switch is a member of L sub-arrays, each of the L sub-arrays associated with a different one of the L dimensions, and including: a plurality of R.sub.i leaf switches, whose co-ordinates differ only in respect of the i.sup.th dimension, each leaf switch having C client ports for connecting to an input device or an output device, and F fabric ports for connecting to spine switches; a plurality of S.sub.i spine switches, each having R fabric ports for connecting to the fabric ports of the leaf switches, and wherein, in a given sub-array each leaf switch in the sub-array is connected to each spine switch via an optical active switch.

In one embodiment, a method for multi-wavelength encoding includes receiving an input optical packet stream having an address and data and encoding the address of the input optical packet stream producing an encoded address including a first group of symbols including a first selected symbol, where the first group of symbols has more than two symbols. The method also includes generating a first wavelength in accordance with the first selected symbol and generating an output optical packet stream having the data of the input optical packet and the first wavelength, where the first wavelength corresponds to the first selected symbol. Additionally, the method includes modulating the first wavelength with the input optical packet stream.

A scalable switch fabric using optical interconnects includes one or more line modules each including fabric interface optics supporting a plurality of optical output signals; an optical interconnect optically connected to each of the one or more line modules via the fabric interface optics; and one or more center stage switches, wherein the optical interconnect is adapted to shuffle the plurality of optical output signals from each of the one or more line modules to the one or more center stage switches. The optical interconnect can include two levels of shuffle to distribute each of the plurality of optical signals from each of the fabric interface optics to the one or more center stage switches.

Optical networking has become ubiquitous in providing low cost, high speed communications networks supporting our communication needs from FTTH through long haul to undersea. The large number of users and high speeds provided to each user fiber mean that information retrieval and routing functionality within the data centers hosting this information can become the bottleneck both in terms of speed and latency. According to embodiments of the invention the inventors present architectures based upon all-optical passive optical networks that support a distributive approach to latency reduction as well as protocols relating to their deployment. Beneficially, such POCXN concepts exploit optical components already supported by high volume manufacturing techniques as well as CWDM/DWDM techniques for throughput increase.

Embodiments of the invention describe flexible (i.e., elastic) data center architectures capable of meeting exascale, while maintaining low latency and using reasonable sizes of electronic packet switches, through the use of optical circuit switches such as optical time, wavelength, waveband and space circuit switching technologies. This flexible architecture enables the reconfigurability of the interconnectivity of servers and storage devices within a data center to respond to the number, size, type and duration of the various applications being requested at any given point in time.

An optical fabric includes a plurality of optical waveguides. The fabric has Np input ports with index, X, and Np output ports with index, Y. An interconnection map between input ports, index X, and output ports, index Y is provided by a non-linear function Y=F(X) that satisfies reversible properties given by, F(Y)=X or, X=F(F(X)) or F.sup.1(X)=F(X). The fabric provides full connectivity from any group of M.sub.1 adjacent input ports to any group of M.sub.2 adjacent output ports where at least one number, M.sub.1 or M.sub.2 is an even number, and wherein M.sub.1M.sub.2=Np.

An optical interconnection assembly has Spine multi-fiber optical connectors and Leaf multi-fiber optical connectors. The Spine optical connectors of the interconnection assembly are optically connected to multi-fiber connectors of Spine switches via Spine patch cords. The Leaf multi-fiber connectors are optically connected to Leaf multi-fiber connectors of Leaf switches via Leaf patch cords. A plurality of fiber optic cables in said interconnection assembly serves to optically connect every Spine multi-fiber connector to every Leaf multi-fiber connector so that every Spine switch is optically connected to every Leaf switch. The optical interconnection assembly facilitates the deployment of network Spine-and-Leaf interconnections and the ability to scale out the network by using simplified methods described in this disclosure.