Facebook unveiled Backpack, its second-generation modular switch platform developed in house at Facebook for 100G data center infrastructure. It leverages Facebook’s recently announced Wedge switch.
Backpack is designed with a clear separation of the data, control, and management planes. It uses simple building blocks called switch elements. The Backpack chassis is equivalent to a set of 12 Wedge 100 switches connected together. The orthogonal direct chassis architecture opens up more air channel space for a better thermal performance for managing the heat from 100G ASICs and optics. Facebook will use the BGP routing protocol for the distribution of routes between the different line cards in the chassis.
The design has already entered production and deployment in Facebook data centers. The company plans to submit the design to the Open Compute Project.
Facebook Targets 32x100G Wedge Data Center Switch
Facebook confirmed that work is already underway on Wedge 100, a 32x100G switch for its hyperscale data centers.
Facebook is also adapting Wedge to a much bigger aggregation switch called 6-pack, which uses Wedge as its foundation and stacks 12 of these Wedges in a modular and nonblocking aggregation switch. FBOSS will be used as a software stack across the growing platform of network switches: Wedge, 6-pack, and now Wedge 100.
In an engineering blog post, Facebook said thousands of its initial Wedge top-of-rack network switch have already been deployed. The design has been contributed to the Open Compute Project and is now commercially available from various vendors.
Facebook also revealed that its FBOSS software undergoes a weekly cadence of new features and bug fixes. Facebook is able to update thousands of switches seamlessly, without any traffic loss, to keep up with this pace. Some new capabilities include detailed monitoring, non-stop forwarding, warm boot, etc.
https://code.facebook.com/posts/145488969140934/open-networking-advances-with-wedge-and-fboss/
