Cloud computing and web applications have further highlighted the need for powerful data centers with large bandwidth and low power consumption. In order to provide such a large bandwidth, today's electronic data centers require high power levels. Furthermore, communications and devices are not always used to their full potential. Optical networks can be a proper option for data centers, as they can offer large and variable bandwidth with lower power consumption compared to their electronic counterparts. In this regard, a dynamic all-optical network architecture is proposed in this paper, with bandwidth reconfiguration capability and low latency to reduce energy consumption. This proposed architecture, called Flat Ball, offers dynamic bandwidth utilizing passive optical devices with low power consumption and latency. Under realistic data center traffic scenarios, the latency of this network is up to 50% lower than its electrical counterpart, while providing a much higher throughput and consuming up to 60% less power.

云计算和网络应用进一步凸显了对具有大带宽和低功耗的强大数据中心的需求。为了提供如此大的带宽，当今的电子数据中心需要高功率水平。此外，通信和设备并不总是能够充分发挥其潜力。光网络可能是数据中心的合适选择，因为与电子网络相比，它们可以提供更大且可变的带宽，并且功耗更低。对此，本文提出了一种动态全光网络架构，具有带宽重构能力和低延迟以降低能耗。这种被提议的架构称为 Flat Ball，利用具有低功耗和延迟的无源光学设备提供动态带宽。