Routing Techniques in Data Center Networks

Data Centers are the core of cloud computing as they consist of thousands of computers which are interconnected in a way to provide cloud services. A Data Center Network (DCNs) can be defined as centralized infrastructure providing several large scale computing and diversified network services like video streaming and cloud computing to its subscribed users [1]. With the proliferation of internet applications, the demand for DCNs are increasing as they provide efficient platform for data storage to such applications. Figure 1 shows the block diagram of data center networks, where end users get services from data centers via the internet. In order to make data centers quick and cost effective, dynamic resources allocation is provided by assigning services to any server or machine in the network. Similarly, the performance isolation between services should also be managed in DCNs. This involves lot of server to server communication and huge amount of traffic is routed among servers in a data center network. Other than the economical (cost-effective) and technical motivations behind the deployment of data center networks, they are designed to facilitate its users. Data centers have some unique characteristics that make them different from other networks such as the internet or LAN. First of all, data centers are designed to deliver large scale computing services and data intensive communications such as web searching, email and network storage. These types of services and applications