Integrating Optical Switching into Data Centers Using Optical Crossconnect Interface Devices

This thesis describes a hybrid optical/electronic network architecture that overcomes the limitations of using only modified commodity hardware in such networks, and is easy for industry to adopt. Test results show significant performance improvements when the proposed system is added to a highly oversubscribed electronic network and good performance with no detrimental effects when the system is added to a traditional electronic network that is not oversubscribed. This allows for greater oversubscription ratios in the electronic network and therefore cheaper and less complex hardware. The primary contributions of this work include a method of seamlessly integrating optical switching into an existing network using custom hardware, a research platform that allows greater flexibility in the analysis of hybrid optical/electronic networks, and a software platform for simulating such networks.