Multistage Packet-Switching Fabrics for Data Center Networks

Recent applications have imposed stringent requirements within the Data Center Network (DCN) switches in terms of scalability, throughput and latency. In this thesis, the architectural design of the packet-switches is tackled in different ways to enable the expansion in both the number of connected endpoints and traffic volume. A cost-effective Clos-network switch with partially buffered units is proposed and two packet scheduling algorithms are described. The first algorithm adopts many simple and distributed arbiters, while the second approach relies on a central arbiter to guarantee an ordered packet delivery. For an improved scalability, the Clos switch is build using a Network-on-Chip (NoC) fabric instead of the common crossbar units. The Clos-UDN architecture made with Input-Queued (IQ) Uni-Directional NoC modules (UDNs) simplifies the input line cards and obviates the need for the costly Virtual Output Queues (VOQs). It also avoids the need for complex, and synchronized scheduling processes, and offers speedup, load balancing, and good path diversity. Under skewed traffic, a reliable micro load-balancing contributes to boosting the overall network performance. Taking advantage of the NoC paradigm, a wrapped-around multistage switch with fully interconnected Central Modules (CMs) is proposed. The architecture operates with a congestion-aware routing algorithm that proactively distributes the traffic load across the switching modules, and enhances the switch performance under critical packet arrivals. The implementation of small on-chip buffers has been made perfectly feasible using the current technology. This motivated the implementation of a large switching architecture with an Output-Queued (OQ) NoC fabric. The design merges assets of the output queuing, and NoCs to provide high throughput, and smooth latency variations. An approximate analytical model of the switch performance is also proposed. To further exploit the potential of the NoC fabrics and their modularity features, a high capacity Clos switch with Multi-Directional NoC (MDN) modules is presented. The Clos-MDN switching architecture exhibits a more compact layout than the Clos-UDN switch. It scales better and faster in port count and traffic load. Results achieved in this thesis demonstrate the high performance, expandability and programmability features of the proposed packet-switches which makes them promising candidates for the next-generation data center networking infrastructure

Multistage Packet-Switching Fabrics for Data Center Networks

Recent applications have imposed stringent requirements within the Data Center Network (DCN) switches in terms of scalability, throughput and latency. In this thesis, the architectural design of the packet-switches is tackled in different ways to enable the expansion in both the number of connected endpoints and traffic volume. A cost-effective Clos-network switch with partially buffered units is proposed and two packet scheduling algorithms are described. The first algorithm adopts many simple and distributed arbiters, while the second approach relies on a central arbiter to guarantee an ordered packet delivery. For an improved scalability, the Clos switch is build using a Network-on-Chip (NoC) fabric instead of the common crossbar units. The Clos-UDN architecture made with Input-Queued (IQ) Uni-Directional NoC modules (UDNs) simplifies the input line cards and obviates the need for the costly Virtual Output Queues (VOQs). It also avoids the need for complex, and synchronized scheduling processes, and offers speedup, load balancing, and good path diversity. Under skewed traffic, a reliable micro load-balancing contributes to boosting the overall network performance. Taking advantage of the NoC paradigm, a wrapped-around multistage switch with fully interconnected Central Modules (CMs) is proposed. The architecture operates with a congestion-aware routing algorithm that proactively distributes the traffic load across the switching modules, and enhances the switch performance under critical packet arrivals. The implementation of small on-chip buffers has been made perfectly feasible using the current technology. This motivated the implementation of a large switching architecture with an Output-Queued (OQ) NoC fabric. The design merges assets of the output queuing, and NoCs to provide high throughput, and smooth latency variations. An approximate analytical model of the switch performance is also proposed. To further exploit the potential of the NoC fabrics and their modularity features, a high capacity Clos switch with Multi-Directional NoC (MDN) modules is presented. The Clos-MDN switching architecture exhibits a more compact layout than the Clos-UDN switch. It scales better and faster in port count and traffic load. Results achieved in this thesis demonstrate the high performance, expandability and programmability features of the proposed packet-switches which makes them promising candidates for the next-generation data center networking infrastructure

Machine Learning for Multi-Layer Open and Disaggregated Optical Networks

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Non-minimal adaptive routing for efficient interconnection networks

RESUMEN: La red de interconexión es un concepto clave de los sistemas de computación paralelos. El primer aspecto que define una red de interconexión es su topología. Habitualmente, las redes escalables y eficientes en términos de coste y consumo energético tienen bajo diámetro y se basan en topologías que encaran el límite de Moore y en las que no hay diversidad de caminos mínimos. Una vez definida la topología, quedando implícitamente definidos los límites de rendimiento de la red, es necesario diseñar un algoritmo de enrutamiento que se acerque lo máximo posible a esos límites y debido a la ausencia de caminos mínimos, este además debe explotar los caminos no mínimos cuando el tráfico es adverso. Estos algoritmos de enrutamiento habitualmente seleccionan entre rutas mínimas y no mínimas en base a las condiciones de la red. Las rutas no mínimas habitualmente se basan en el algoritmo de balanceo de carga propuesto por Valiant, esto implica que doblan la longitud de las rutas mínimas y por lo tanto, la latencia soportada por los paquetes se incrementa. En cuanto a la tecnología, desde su introducción en entornos HPC a principios de los años 2000, Ethernet ha sido usado en un porcentaje representativo de los sistemas. Esta tesis introduce una implementación realista y competitiva de una red escalable y sin pérdidas basada en dispositivos de red Ethernet commodity, considerando topologías de bajo diámetro y bajo consumo energético y logrando un ahorro energético de hasta un 54%. Además, propone un enrutamiento sobre la citada arquitectura, en adelante QCN-Switch, el cual selecciona entre rutas mínimas y no mínimas basado en notificaciones de congestión explícitas. Una vez implementada la decisión de enrutar siguiendo rutas no mínimas, se introduce un enrutamiento adaptativo en fuente capaz de adaptar el número de saltos en las rutas no mínimas. Este enrutamiento, en adelante ACOR, es agnóstico de la topología y mejora la latencia en hasta un 28%. Finalmente, se introduce un enrutamiento dependiente de la topología, en adelante LIAN, que optimiza el número de saltos de las rutas no mínimas basado en las condiciones de la red. Los resultados de su evaluación muestran que obtiene una latencia cuasi óptima y mejora el rendimiento de algoritmos de enrutamiento actuales reduciendo la latencia en hasta un 30% y obteniendo un rendimiento estable y equitativo.ABSTRACT: Interconnection network is a key concept of any parallel computing system. The first aspect to define an interconnection network is its topology. Typically, power and cost-efficient scalable networks with low diameter rely on topologies that approach the Moore bound in which there is no minimal path diversity. Once the topology is defined, the performance bounds of the network are determined consequently, so a suitable routing algorithm should be designed to accomplish as much as possible of those limits and, due to the lack of minimal path diversity, it must exploit non-minimal paths when the traffic pattern is adversarial. These routing algorithms usually select between minimal and non-minimal paths based on the network conditions, where the non-minimal paths are built according to Valiant load-balancing algorithm. This implies that these paths double the length of minimal ones and then the latency supported by packets increases. Regarding the technology, from its introduction in HPC systems in the early 2000s, Ethernet has been used in a significant fraction of the systems. This dissertation introduces a realistic and competitive implementation of a scalable lossless Ethernet network for HPC environments considering low-diameter and low-power topologies. This allows for up to 54% power savings. Furthermore, it proposes a routing upon the cited architecture, hereon QCN-Switch, which selects between minimal and non-minimal paths per packet based on explicit congestion notifications instead of credits. Once the miss-routing decision is implemented, it introduces two mechanisms regarding the selection of the intermediate switch to develop a source adaptive routing algorithm capable of adapting the number of hops in the non-minimal paths. This routing, hereon ACOR, is topology-agnostic and improves average latency in all cases up to 28%. Finally, a topology-dependent routing, hereon LIAN, is introduced to optimize the number of hops in the non-minimal paths based on the network live conditions. Evaluations show that LIAN obtains almost-optimal latency and outperforms state-of-the-art adaptive routing algorithms, reducing latency by up to 30.0% and providing stable throughput and fairness.This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports under grant FPU14/02253, the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness under contracts TIN2010-21291-C02-02, TIN2013-46957-C2-2-P, and TIN2013-46957-C2-2-P (AEI/FEDER, UE), the Spanish Research Agency under contract PID2019-105660RBC22/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, the European Union under agreements FP7-ICT-2011- 7-288777 (Mont-Blanc 1) and FP7-ICT-2013-10-610402 (Mont-Blanc 2), the University of Cantabria under project PAR.30.P072.64004, and by the European HiPEAC Network of Excellence through an internship grant supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. H2020-ICT-2015-687689

Building interactive distributed processing applications at a global scale

Along with the continuous engagement with technology, many latency-sensitive interactive applications have emerged, e.g., global content sharing in social networks, adaptive lights/temperatures in smart buildings, and online multi-user games. These applications typically process a massive amount of data at a global scale. In this cases, distributing storage and processing is key to handling the large scale. Distribution necessitates handling two main aspects: a) the placement of data/processing and b) the data motion across the distributed locations. However, handling the distribution while meeting latency guarantees at large scale comes with many challenges around hiding heterogeneity and diversity of devices and workload, handling dynamism in the environment, providing continuous availability despite failures, and supporting persistent large state. In this thesis, we show how latency-driven designs for placement and data-motion can be used to build production infrastructures for interactive applications at a global scale, while also being able to address myriad challenges on heterogeneity, dynamism, state, and availability. We demonstrate a latency-driven approach is general and applicable at all layers of the stack: from storage, to processing, down to networking. We designed and built four distinct systems across the spectrum. We have developed Ambry (collaboration with LinkedIn), a geo-distributed storage system for interactive data sharing across the globe. Ambry is LinkedIn's mainstream production system for all its media content running across 4 datacenters and over 500 million users. Ambry minimizes user perceived latency via smart data placement and propagation. Second, we have built two processing systems, a traditional model, Samza, and the avant-garde model, Steel. Samza (collaboration with LinkedIn) is a production stream processing framework used at 15 companies (including LinkedIn, Uber, Netflix, and TripAdvisor), powering >200 pipelines at LinkedIn alone. Samza minimizes the impact of data motion on the end-to-end latency, thus, enabling large persistent state (100s of TB) along with processing. Steel (collaboration with Microsoft) extends processing to the emerging edge. Integrated with Azure, Steel dynamically optimizes placement and data-motion across the entire edge-cloud environment. Finally, we have designed FreeFlow, a high performance networking mechanisms for containers. Using the container placement, FreeFlow opportunistically bypasses networking layers, minimizing data motion and reducing latency (up to 3 orders of magnitude)

Energy-Efficient Interconnection Networks for High-Performance Computing

In recent years, energy has become one of the most important factors for de- signing and operating large scale computing systems. This is particularly true in high-performance computing, where systems often consist of thousands of nodes. Especially after the end of Dennard’s scaling, the demand for energy- proportionality in components, where energy is depending linearly on utilization, increases continuously. As the main contributor to the overall power consumption, processors have received the main attention so far. The increasing energy proportionality of processors, however, shifts the focus to other components such as interconnection networks. Their share of the overall power consumption is expected to increase to 20% or more while other components further increase their efficiency in the near future. Hence, it is crucial to improve energy proportionality in interconnection networks likewise to reduce overall power and energy consumption. To facilitate these attempts, this work provides comprehensive studies about energy saving in interconnection networks at different levels. First, interconnection networks differ fundamentally from other components in their underlying technology. To gain a deeper understanding of these differences and to identify targets for energy savings, this work provides a detailed power analysis of current network hardware. Furthermore, various applications at different scales are analyzed regarding their communication patterns and locality properties. The findings show that communication makes up only a small fraction of the execution time and networks are actually idling most of the time. Another observation is that point-to-point communication often only occurs within various small subsets of all participants, which indicates that a coordinated mapping could further decrease network traffic. Based on these studies, three different energy-saving policies are designed, which all differ in their implementation and focus. Then, these policies are evaluated in an event-based, power-aware network simulator. While two policies that operate completely local at link level, enable significant energy savings of more than 90% in most analyses, the hybrid one does not provide further benefits despite significant additional design effort. Additionally, these studies include network design parameters, such as transition time between different link configurations, as well as the three most common topologies in supercomputing systems. The final part of this work addresses the interactions of congestion management and energy-saving policies. Although both network management strategies aim for different goals and use opposite approaches, they complement each other and can increase energy efficiency in all studies as well as improve the performance overhead as opposed to plain energy saving

Online learning on the programmable dataplane

This thesis makes the case for managing computer networks with datadriven methods automated statistical inference and control based on measurement data and runtime observations—and argues for their tight integration with programmable dataplane hardware to make management decisions faster and from more precise data. Optimisation, defence, and measurement of networked infrastructure are each challenging tasks in their own right, which are currently dominated by the use of hand-crafted heuristic methods. These become harder to reason about and deploy as networks scale in rates and number of forwarding elements, but their design requires expert knowledge and care around unexpected protocol interactions. This makes tailored, per-deployment or -workload solutions infeasible to develop. Recent advances in machine learning offer capable function approximation and closed-loop control which suit many of these tasks. New, programmable dataplane hardware enables more agility in the network— runtime reprogrammability, precise traffic measurement, and low latency on-path processing. The synthesis of these two developments allows complex decisions to be made on previously unusable state, and made quicker by offloading inference to the network. To justify this argument, I advance the state of the art in data-driven defence of networks, novel dataplane-friendly online reinforcement learning algorithms, and in-network data reduction to allow classification of switchscale data. Each requires co-design aware of the network, and of the failure modes of systems and carried traffic. To make online learning possible in the dataplane, I use fixed-point arithmetic and modify classical (non-neural) approaches to take advantage of the SmartNIC compute model and make use of rich device local state. I show that data-driven solutions still require great care to correctly design, but with the right domain expertise they can improve on pathological cases in DDoS defence, such as protecting legitimate UDP traffic. In-network aggregation to histograms is shown to enable accurate classification from fine temporal effects, and allows hosts to scale such classification to far larger flow counts and traffic volume. Moving reinforcement learning to the dataplane is shown to offer substantial benefits to stateaction latency and online learning throughput versus host machines; allowing policies to react faster to fine-grained network events. The dataplane environment is key in making reactive online learning feasible—to port further algorithms and learnt functions, I collate and analyse the strengths of current and future hardware designs, as well as individual algorithms

Convergencia de tecnologías ópticas y Ethernet en LAN, MAN y SAN: nuevas arquitecturas, análisis de prestaciones y eficiencia energética

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorThe development of Information Technologies in the last decades, especially the last two, together with the introduction of computing devices to the mainstream consumer market, has had the logical consequence of the generalisation of the Internet access. The explosive development of the smartphone market has brought ubiquity to that generalisation, to the point that social interaction, content sharing and content production happens all the time. Social networks have all but increased that trend, maximising the diffusion of multimedia content: images, audio and video, which require high network capacities to be enjoyed quickly. This need for endless bandwidth and speed in information sharing brings challenges that affect mainly optical Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs). Furthermore, the wide spreading of Ethernet technologies has also brought the possibility to achieve economies of scale by either extending the reach of Ethernet Local Area Networks (LANs) to the MAN and WAN environment or even integrating them with Storage Area Networks (SANs). Finally, this generalisation of telecommunication technologies in every day life has as a consequence an important rise in energy consumption as well. Because of this, providing energy efficient strategies in networking is key to ensure the scalability of the whole Internet. In this thesis, the main technologies in all the fields mentioned above are reviewed, its core challenges identified and several contributions beyond the state of the art are suggested to improve today’s MANs andWANs. In the first contribution of this thesism, the integration between Metro Ethernet and Wavelength Division Multiplexion (WDM) optical transparent rings is explored by proposing an adaptation architecture to provide efficient broadcast and multicast. The second contribution explores the fusion between transparent WDM and OCDMA architectures to simplify medium access in a ring. Regarding SANs, the third contribution explores the challenges in SANs through the problems of Fibre Channel over Ethernet due to buffer design issues. In this contribution, analysis, design and validation with FCoE traces and simulation is provided to calculate buffer overflow probabilities in the absence of flow control mechanisms taking into account the bursty nature of SAN traffic. Finally, the fourth and last contribution addresses the problems of energy efficiency in Plastic Optical Fibres (POF), a new kind of optical fibre more suitable for transmission in vehicles and for home networking. This contribution suggests two packet coalescing strategies to further improve the energy effiency mechanisms in POFs.El desarrollo de las Tecnologías de la Información en las últimas décadas, especialmente las últimas dos, junto con la introducción de dispositivos informáticos al mercado de masas, ha tenido como consecuencia lógica la generalización del acceso a Internet. El explosivo desarrollo del mercado de teléfonos inteligentes ha añadido un factor de ubicuidad a tal generalización, al extremo de que la interacción social, la compartición y producción de contenidos sucede a cada instante. Las redes sociales no han hecho sino incrementar tal tendencia, maximizando la difusión de contenido multimedia: imágenes, audio y vídeo, los cuales requieren gran capacidad en las redes para poder obtenerse con rapidez. Esta necesidad de ancho de banda ilimitado y velocidad en la compartición de información trae consigo retos que afectan principalmente a las Redes de Área Metropolitana (Metropolitan Area Networks, MANs) y Redes de Área Extensa (Wide Area Networks, WANs). Además, la gran difusión de las tecnologías Ethernet ha traído la posibilidad de alcanzar economías de escala bien extendiendo el alcance de Ethernet más allá de las Redes de Área Local (Local Area Networks, LANs) al entorno de las MAN y las WAN o incluso integrándolas con Redes de Almacenamiento (Storage Area Networks, SANs). Finalmente, esta generalización de las tecnologías de la comunicación en la vida cotidiana tiene también como consecuencia un importante aumento en el consumo de energía. Por tanto, desarrollar estrategias de transmisión en red eficientes energéticamente es clave para asegurar la escalabilidad de Internet. En esta tesis, las principales tecnologías de todos los campos mencionados arriba serán estudiadas, sus más importantes retos identificados y se sugieren varias contribuciones más allá del actual estado del arte para mejorar las actuales MANs y WANs. En la primera contribución de esta tesis, se explora la integración entre Metro Ethernet y anillos ópticos transparentes por Multiplexión en Longitud de Onda (Wavelength Division Multiplex, WDM) mediante la proposición de una arquitectura de adaptación para permitir la difusión y multidifusión eficiente. La segunda contribución explora la fusión entre las arquitecturas transparentes WDM y arquitecturas por Accesso Dividido Múltiple por Códigos Ópticos (OCDMA) para simplificar el acceso en una red en anillo. En lo referente a las SANs, la tercera contribución explora los retos en SANs a través de los problemas de Fibre Channel sobre Ethernet debido a los problemas en el diseño de búferes. En esta contribución, se provee un análisis, diseño y validación con trazas FCoE para calcular las probabilidades de desbordamiento de buffer en ausencia de mecanismos de control de flujo teniendo en cuenta la naturaleza rafagosa del tráfico de SAN. Finalmente, la cuarta y última contribución aborda los problemas de eficiencia energética en Fibras Ópticas Plásticas (POF), una nueva variedad de fibra óptica más adecuada para la transmisión en vehículos y para entornos de red caseros. Esta contribución sugiere dos estrategias de agrupamiento de paquetes para mejorar los mecanismos de eficiencia energética en POFs.Programa Oficial de Posgrado en Ingeniería TelemáticaPresidente: Luca Valcarenghi.- Secretario: Ignacio Soto Campos.- Vocal: Bas Huiszoo

Modelling, Dimensioning and Optimization of 5G Communication Networks, Resources and Services

This reprint aims to collect state-of-the-art research contributions that address challenges in the emerging 5G networks design, dimensioning and optimization. Designing, dimensioning and optimization of communication networks resources and services have been an inseparable part of telecom network development. The latter must convey a large volume of traffic, providing service to traffic streams with highly differentiated requirements in terms of bit-rate and service time, required quality of service and quality of experience parameters. Such a communication infrastructure presents many important challenges, such as the study of necessary multi-layer cooperation, new protocols, performance evaluation of different network parts, low layer network design, network management and security issues, and new technologies in general, which will be discussed in this book

An Introduction to Computer Networks

An open textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses on computer networks