Intel Corporation
METHOD AND APPARATUS TO USE A PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORK TO COMMUNICATE BETWEEN SERVERS IN A DATACENTER

Abstract:

A passive optical network is used for communications in a data center between an Optical Line Terminal (OLT) in an Ethernet switch and an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) in a compute node in a server. The passive optical network reduces the latency from microseconds to single digit nanoseconds in both upstream and downstream directions that can result in an increase in application performance. In addition, because the passive optical network does not use active components, the passive optical network has a reduced Mean Time Between Failures that can be decades or centuries.