The document introduces CALIENT Technologies' VPOD (Virtual POD) solution using their S-Series 3D-MEMS Optical Circuit Switch. The VPOD allows for compute resources to be shared between physical PODs at the optical layer, improving server utilization from typically less than 40% to over 50%. This can save tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in CAPEX for large data centers. The CALIENT LightConnect switching fabric and manager allow dynamic allocation of resources between VPODs on demand, improving efficiency without impacting performance.
What we show here is the well known multi-layer SDN model with application, control, and infrastructure layers.The important point here is that the packet and optical circuit switches can all coexist together in the infrastructure layer with coordinated control from the upper layers.