Torii: Multipath Distributed Ethernet Fabric Protocol for Data Centers with Zero-Loss Path Repair

Abstract

This paper describes and evaluates Torii, a layer-two data center network fabric protocol. The main features of Torii are being fully distributed, scalable, fault-tolerant and with automatic setup. Torii is based on multiple, tree-based, topological MAC addresses that are used for table-free forwarding over multiple equal-cost paths, and it is capable of rerouting frames around failed links on the fly without needing a central fabric manager for any function. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first protocol that does not require the exchange of periodic messages to work under normal conditions and to recover from link failures, as Torii exchanges messages just once. Moreover, another important characteristic of Torii is that it is compatible with a wide range of data center topologies. Simulation results show an excellent distribution of traffic load and latencies, similar to shortest path protocols.