How To Build a 100,000-Port Ethernet Switch

BobB-nw writes "University of California at San Diego researchers Tuesday are presenting a paper (PDF) describing software that they say could make data center networks massively scalable. The researchers say their PortLand software will enable Layer 2 data center network fabrics scalable to 100,000 ports and beyond; they have a prototype running at the school's Department of Computer Science and Engineering's Jacobs School of Engineering. 'With PortLand, we came up with a set of algorithms and protocols that combine the best of layer 2 and layer 3 network fabrics,' said Amin Vahdat, a computer science professor at UC San Diego. 'Today, the largest data centers contain over 100,000 servers. Ideally, we would like to have the flexibility to run any application on any server while minimizing the amount of required network configuration and state... We are working toward a network that administrators can think of as one massive 100,000-port switch seamlessly serving over one million virtual endpoints.'"

Comments

Re:You're right, you can USE a vacuum cleaner

[jcr]

You're probably thinking that we have several billion bears we can import before we run out of them.

As it happens, I'm thinking that you're a pompous windbag who has way too much of his ego invested in memorization of needless complexity.

-jcr

Re:It's like talking to a rock

[jcr]

Yes, I'm going on and one trying to explain the technical side of it to you, but it's starting to feel a little like trying to explain math to a dog.

More like, you're trying to justify your existence to one who knows that your job is on the way to becoming redundant, and that that is a good thing. I know that what you do is complex. I also know that researchers trying to reduce that complexity are part of the solution, and people like you who oppose what they're trying to do are part of the problem.

-jcr