Unlocking Diversity of Fast-Switched Optical Data Center Networks With Unified Routing

Optical data center networks (DCNs) are emerging as a promising solution for cloud infrastructure in the post-Moore’s Law era, particularly with the advent of “fast-switched” optical architectures capable of circuit reconfiguration at microsecond or even nanosecond scales. However, frequent reconfiguration of optical circuits introduces a unique challenge: in-flight packets risk loss during these transitions, hindering the deployment of many mature optical hardware designs due to the lack of suitable routing solutions. In this paper, we present Unified Routing for Optical networks (URO), a general routing framework designed to support fast-switched optical DCNs across various hardware architectures. URO combines theoretical modeling of this novel routing problem with practical implementation on programmable switches, enabling precise, time-based packet transmission. Our prototype on Intel Tofino2 switches achieves a minimum circuit duration of 2 µs, ensuring end-to-end, loss-free application performance. Large-scale simulations using production DCN traffic validate URO’s generality across different hardware configurations, demonstrating its effectiveness and efficient system resource utilization.