Rack assembly structure

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9904027-B2
Application number	US-201615378786-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 14, 2016
Priority date	Jan 15, 2013
Publication date	Feb 27, 2018
Grant date	Feb 27, 2018

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide techniques and configurations for a rack assembly. In one embodiment, a tray to be disposed in a rack assembly may comprise a plurality of sleds with individual sleds including one or more compute nodes; and a networking element coupled with a sled of the plurality of sleds and configured to communicatively connect the sled to one or more other components of the rack assembly via an optical communication system. The optical communication system may include an external optical cable configured to communicatively connect the networking element with the rack assembly. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A rack assembly, comprising:
a tray, having at least one sled including at least one compute node, and a midplane coupled with the sled, to provide connectivity for the sled;
an optical patch panel coupled with the midplane via an optical communication system, wherein the optical communication system includes an optical module that resides on the midplane, an optical jumper cable coupled with the optical module, and an external optical cable coupled with the optical jumper cable and the optical patch panel;
a mezzanine card attached to the midplane, to provide connectivity between the sled and the optical patch panel, to enable transmission and reception of optical data streams, wherein the optical module is coupled with the mezzanine card; and
a top of rack (TOR) switch coupled with the optical patch panel, wherein the optical patch panel is to provide connectivity between the tray and the TOR switch of the rack assembly.

2. The rack assembly of claim 1 , wherein the mezzanine card includes a central processing unit (CPU) control module, and a switch coupled with the optical module.

3. The rack assembly of claim 1 , wherein the optical patch panel comprises one or more optical channels to provide optical connections between the tray and other trays of the rack assembly, and one or more uplink optical channels, to provide optical connections of the rack assembly with other rack assemblies via the TOR switch of the rack assembly.

4. The rack assembly of claim 3 , wherein the compute node comprises a central authority coupled with a plurality of compute nodes of the other rack assemblies, to receive a process system management data from the plurality of compute nodes, wherein the system management data includes power management data, humidity control data, cooling control data, workload provisioning data, storage servicing data, input-output (I/O) data, and throughput data.

5. The rack assembly of claim 1 , wherein the compute node comprises a server.

6. The rack assembly of claim 1 , further comprising a power connector coupled with the tray, to provide power to the tray.

7. A rack assembly, comprising:
a tray, having at least one sled including at least one compute node, and a midplane coupled with the sled, to provide connectivity for the sled;
an optical patch panel coupled with the midplane; and
a top of rack (TOR) switch coupled with the optical patch panel, wherein the optical patch panel is to provide connectivity between the tray and the TOR switch of the rack assembly, and wherein the optical patch panel comprises one or more optical channels to provide optical connections between the tray and other trays of the rack assembly, and one or more uplink optical channels, to provide optical connections of the rack assembly with other rack assemblies via the TOR switch of the rack assembly.

8. The rack assembly of claim 7 , wherein the TOR switch includes one or more optical modules, to provide connectivity between the tray and other trays of the rack assembly.

9. The rack assembly of claim 7 , further comprising a mezzanine card attached to the midplane, to provide the connectivity for the sled of the tray, wherein the connectivity includes Ethernet connectivity and Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) connectivity.

10. The rack assembly of claim 9 , wherein the mezzanine card includes a central processing unit (CPU) control module, a switch, and one or more silicon photonic modules to provide optical connectivity between the sled and the optical patch panel, to enable transmission and reception of optical data streams.

11. The rack assembly of claim 10 , wherein the switch of the mezzanine card comprises an Ethernet switch, to aggregate electrical signals, prior to transmission via the one or more silicon photonic modules.

12. The rack assembly of claim 7 , wherein the one or more optical channels and uplink optical channels are disposed according to a network connectivity model, wherein the model comprises one of: an N-dimensional (N-D) ring, Clos, or a combination thereof.

13. The rack assembly of claim 7 , wherein the one or more uplink optical channels comprise an optical cable, to provide optical connections with a network interface chip (NIC) of the switch of the rack assembly.

14. The rack assembly of claim 7 , wherein the compute node comprises a server.

15. The rack assembly of claim 7 , wherein the compute node provides a compute, storage, or networking function, or a combination thereof.

16. The rack assembly of claim 15 , wherein the storage comprises one or more solid state disk drives (SSD) or hard disk drives (HDD).

17. The rack assembly of claim 7 , wherein the sled with the compute node is removably attachable to the tray.

18. The rack assembly of claim 7 , wherein the rack assembly comprises a data center.

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Faw Donald L
• Cummings Uri V
• Trausch Terrence J
• Daly Daniel P
• Alduino Andrew C

Classifications

• G02B6/4452 Primary

  Distribution frames · CPC title

• G02B6/3897

  Connectors fixed to housings, casing, frames or circuit boards (G02B6/44528 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H04Q1/13

  Patch panels for monitoring, interconnecting or testing circuits, e.g. patch bay, patch field or jack field; Patching modules · CPC title

• H04Q1/09

  Frames or mounting racks not otherwise provided for · CPC title

• H05K7/1492

  having electrical distribution arrangements, e.g. power supply or data communications · CPC title