Clos Network
Recently, I heard a term as cloud native. So I started to research what it means to the network architecture. It turned out in the LAN or data center, it means to build and run a scalable non-blocking switch fabric with cost effective merchant silicon switches. One key concept of building a non-blocking switch fabric is to build a Clos network with switches and inter-switch links. I heard about Clos network, but I never get the chance to look into it and to understand how it works. In order to get that addressed, I spent sometime over the weekend to study the topic. What is a Clos network? According to Wikipedia , Clos network is a kind of multistage circuit-switching network which represents a theoretical idealization of practical, multistage switching systems. It was invented by Edson Erwin in 1938 and first formalized by Charles Clos in 1952. Without Clos network, the number of input lines (bars) and output lines (bars) simply limited the number of input and ou...