LEED: A Lightwave Energy-Efficient Datacenter
Novel lightwave network doubling energy efficiency in data centers.
The Regents of California, San Diego
Recipient
La Jolla, CA
Recipient Location
38th
Senate District
77th
Assembly District
$474,997
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
The first phase of the project was completed and successfully developed its optical switch and the necessary transmitter and receiver to revolutionize data centers. Currently, fiber optical lines are used for internet, but data centers are still using electrical lines to each data center rack. Using light signals in the optical switches is expected to increase energy efficiency by 50% and would process data faster. The data processing speed is one of the main driving factors in consumer appeal for data centers and should be easily marketed in the data center industry. Funding for the second phase of the program has been approved by Department on Energy and the project will continue the development and demonstration of the technology.
The Issue
Increasing the Power Utilization Efficiency (PUE) of a data center will not increase the overall datacenter energy efficiency. Further improvements in the energy efficiency of a datacenter require directly addressing the energy utilization of each server. Based on current trends, this is a challenging problem because datacenter traffic is increasing at a much faster rate than packet switch chip bandwidth is increasing. This means that future datacenters will require more switch chips and constantly more power, to support the ever-increasing data rate.
Project Innovation
The goal of this federal cost share grant, the Lightwave Energy-Efficiency Datacenter (LEED) program, is to at least double the current energy efficiency of a datacenter. This dramatic improvement is realized by increasing the energy utilization of each server by means of a novel lightwave network. The LEED network can substantially increase the network bandwidth which leads to a corresponding improvement in the server energy utilization. This improvement can be realized at a cost comparable to a state-of-the-art datacenter network based on conventional electrical switching technologies.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
This project could lead to technological advancement in lightwave technology for datacenters. It could double the efficiency of datacenters by increasing the speed of response and reducing energy input.
Consumer Appeal
This technology uses optical switches in the server hub, to increase data transferring speeds and energy efficiency. Using light signals with a rotor switch reduces the amount of heat produced in the data center, which in turn reduces the amount of cooling energy required for datacenters.
Key Project Members
