Short Courses

AI and cloud networking have driven demand for data center interconnects (DCI) to unprecedented levels in recent years. At the same time, technology development on optics and electronics has allowed integration of state-of-the-art optical transceivers in small, pluggable, form factors for direct use in routing and switching equipment.

This short course gives a broad overview of DCI architectures and technology in hyper-scale and AI networking, ranging from short-haul interconnects of just a few kilometers across a campus, to metro and finally long-haul deployments. We focus in this short course on how the latest advances in DWDM transport enable the realization of ever denser, more power efficient, higher capacity and more scalable data center interconnect links.

We will provide an overview of the different technologies that are most relevant for today’s data center interconnects, covering the full range of transmitter and receiver technologies, pluggable form factors, modulation formats, protocols, and data rates. We will also cover the latest industry developments, with a special focus on 400ZR/ZR+, 800ZR/ZR+, and future 1600ZR/ZR+, pluggable DWDM optics and how this impacts edge DCI architectures.

Besides transceiver technology, we will also cover system design aspects such as data center architectures, open line systems, disaggregation of the optical layer and cloud-scale network management and monitoring. We will discuss distinctives of data center interconnects when compared to traditional optical transport networks, and what are the most relevant design criteria in today’s DCI deployments. Finally, we will cover in detail the latest industry standardization initiatives around pluggable DWDM optics.

The short course should enable attendees to obtain a detailed overview of the different technologies and architectures that are most relevant to data center interconnects and get a comprehensive understanding for the different system design trade-offs in terms of cost, capacity, density, power consumption and complexity.

This course should enable you to:

• Understand what drives the need for data center interconnects. How does DCI play a role in modern data center architectures, and what is the impact of new use cases such as AI cluster training and inference.
• Describe the typical requirements for data center interconnects, including transmission distances, system capacity, traffic profiles, data rates, protocols and transmission latency.
• Understand the system architecture of today’s data center interconnects, and which architectures are typically utilized in high-capacity data center interconnect deployments at 400G and 800G, as well as how this will likely evolve towards 1.6T data rates.
• Describe how network disaggregation, open line systems, network monitoring, and management are implemented in cloud-scale networks.
• Understand the different transceiver architectures in the context of short-reach DCI, for example direct detection in comparison to coherent detection, and how to leverage the trade-off between optical performance and system complexity / cost.
• Be able to understand industry trends toward IP-optical integration with ZR/ZR+ pluggable DWDM optics, and how this can be used to reduce power and space requirements for short-reach DCI interconnects.
• Obtain an overview of the different standardization bodies relevant for data center interconnects such as IEEE, OIF, OpenZR+ and OpenROADM MSA, and how they contribute to the next generation of DC architectures at 1.6T and beyond.

This course is intended for engineers, researchers and technical managers who would like to gain a better understanding of data center interconnect technology, architectures and solutions as used in hyperscale cloud & AI networking. Practical network implementations and system design trade-offs will be discussed in detail, such that the participants can obtain a good level of understanding for the challenges of today’s data center interconnect solutions. Participants should have a comprehensive knowledge in the field of fiber-optic transmission systems; no previous knowledge of data center architectures is required.

Dirk van den Borne is a director of system engineering at Juniper Networks, where he leads a worldwide team of solution architects that advise operators on technology evolution across routing and transport. He specializes himself in the convergence of IP/MPLS and DWDM transport, and how developments in Ethernet, optical integration, and telemetry/analytics are shaping network architectures.

Dirk obtained his Ph.D. in optical communications from the Eindhoven University of Technology. He has spoken frequently at major industry events, authored and co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal and conference contributions and holds several patents on optical communication. He served on various technical program committees, including currently on the OFC committee. He is based in Munich, Germany.

Sander L. Jansen is vice-president and general manager for the infrastructure monitoring BU at Adtran in Munich, Germany. Prior to Adtran, Sander was a technical team lead of the optical components group at Nokia Siemens Networks, responsible for the evaluation and specification of new optical components.
He received his Ph.D. degree with highest honors in electronic engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology. Sander authored and co-authored 10+ patents, one book chapter and more than 100 refereed papers and conference contributions. He has received several awards including the Young Investigator award from the IEEE Photonics Society.

Mark M. Filer works at a Stealth Startup as Area Tech Lead in Photonics. Prior to that, Mark was at Google as Optical Network Architect, focusing on campus, metro DCI, and wide-area network optical solutions, and next-gen datacenter network architectures. Before Google, Mark spent 7 years in Microsoft Azure HW and Networking orgs in Redmond, WA, and 14 years in optical R&D at ADVA Optical Networking in Atlanta, GA. He has numerous publications and patents in the areas of cloud-scale open line systems, long-haul transmission, ROADM network architectures, and DWDM system impairments. He holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA. Mark previously served on the OIF Board of Directors as Vice President.