ONS 2015: Amin Vahdat on datacenter networks with 5 Pbps cross-ectional bandwidth

Explains some lessons learned and the result of a number of years of research in virtualizing switching in their datacenters.

• We arrange our network around a Clos topology, a network configuration where a collection of smaller (cheaper) switches are arranged to provide the properties of a much larger logical switch.
• We use a centralized software control stack to manage thousands of switches within the data center, making them effectively act as one large fabric.
• We build our own software and hardware using silicon from vendors, relying less on standard Internet protocols and more on custom protocols tailored to the data center.

ONS2014 Keynote: Amin Vahdat, Google on network virtualization

Explains the virtualization stack behind G’s cloud platform and its own services.

Andromeda’s goal is to expose the raw performance of the underlying network while simultaneously exposing network function virtualization (NFV). We expose the same in-network processing that enables our internal services to scale while remaining extensible and isolated to end users. This functionality includes distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection, transparent service load balancing, access control lists, and firewalls. We do this all while improving performance, with more enhancements coming.