{"id":238087,"date":"2016-03-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/msr-research-item\/xfabric-a-reconfigurable-in-rack-network-for-rack-scale-computers\/"},"modified":"2018-10-16T19:58:05","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T02:58:05","slug":"xfabric-a-reconfigurable-in-rack-network-for-rack-scale-computers","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/xfabric-a-reconfigurable-in-rack-network-for-rack-scale-computers\/","title":{"rendered":"XFabric: A Reconfigurable In-Rack Network for Rack-Scale Computers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"asset-content\">\n<p>Rack-scale computers are dense clusters with hundreds of micro-servers per rack. Designed for data center workloads, they can have significant power, cost and performance benefits over current racks. The rack network can be distributed, with small packet switches embedded on each processor as part of a system-on-chip (SoC) design. Ingress\/egress traffic is forwarded by SoCs that have direct uplinks to the data center. Such fabrics are not fully provisioned and the chosen topology and uplink placement impacts performance for different workloads.<\/p>\n<p>XFabric is a rack-scale network that reconfigures the topology and uplink placement using a circuit-switched physical layer over which SoCs perform packet switching. To satisfy tight power and space requirements in the rack, XFabric does not use a single large circuit switch, instead relying on a set of independent smaller circuit switches. This introduces partial reconfigurability, as some ports in the rack cannot be connected by a circuit. XFabric optimizes the physical topology and manages uplinks, efficiently coping with partial reconfigurability. It significantly outperforms static topologies and has a performance similar to fully reconfigurable fabrics. We demonstrate the benefits of XFabric using flow-based simulations and a prototype built with electrical crosspoint switch ASICs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .asset-content --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rack-scale computers are dense clusters with hundreds of micro-servers per rack. Designed for data center workloads, they can have significant power, cost and performance benefits over current racks. The rack network can be distributed, with small packet switches embedded on each processor as part of a system-on-chip (SoC) design. Ingress\/egress traffic is forwarded by SoCs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13547],"msr-publication-type":[193716],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-238087","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-systems-and-networking","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"USENIX Association","msr_edition":"13th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 16)","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2016-03-16","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"15\u201329","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"978-1-931971-29-4","msr_journal":"","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"238405","msr_publicationurl":"https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/conference\/nsdi16\/technical-sessions\/presentation\/legtchenko","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"file","title":"XFabric%20-%20NSDI%202016.pdf","viewUrl":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/XFabric20-20NSDI202016-1.pdf","id":238405,"label_id":0},{"type":"url","title":"https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/conference\/nsdi16\/technical-sessions\/presentation\/legtchenko","viewUrl":false,"id":false,"label_id":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_attachments":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/conference\/nsdi16\/technical-sessions\/presentation\/legtchenko"},{"id":238405,"url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/XFabric20-20NSDI202016-1.pdf"}],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"user_nicename","value":"serleg","user_id":33580,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=serleg"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"nchen","user_id":33069,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=nchen"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"daclethe","user_id":31505,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=daclethe"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"antr","user_id":31061,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=antr"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"hughwi","user_id":32055,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=hughwi"},{"type":"text","value":"Xiaohan Zhao","user_id":0,"rest_url":false}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[],"msr_project":[171302],"publication":[],"video":[],"download":[],"msr_publication_type":"inproceedings","related_content":{"projects":[{"ID":171302,"post_title":"Rack-scale Computing","post_name":"rack-scale-computing","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2014-02-19 03:07:37","post_modified":"2017-06-14 09:04:32","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/rack-scale-computing\/","post_excerpt":"&nbsp; New hardware technology such as systems- and networks-on-chip (SOCs and NOCs), switchless network fabrics, silicon photonics, and RDMA, are redefining the landscape of data center computing, enabling interconnecting thousands of cores at high speed at the scale of today's racks. We refer to this new class of hardware as rack-scale computers (RSCs) because the rack is increasingly replacing the individual server as the basic building block of modern data centers. Early examples of RSCs&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/171302"}]}}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/238087"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/238087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515288,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/238087\/revisions\/515288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-content-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-content-type?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-product-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-product-type?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-platform?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-download-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-download-source?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=238087"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=238087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}