The existing wired intra data center (DC) networks suffer from traffic congestion, low scalability, low flexibility, and increasing power consumption. To solve this problem there is a need to move from wired to wireless intra DC connections. One of the technologies that could provide a solution for the next generation intra DC communication is the use of free space optical (FSO) communication. However, in DC networks there is turbulence that can affect performance of FSO communication. In this letter, we present a DC experiment that we performed to characterize the performance of the FSO intra DC turbulent channel. We found that the pdf of the received signal is lognormally distributed according to the theoretical predictions, and we received values of bit error rate less than 10⁻¹⁶ in all the areas of the DC, which is better than the desired minimum of 10⁻¹⁴ for DC communication. This means that the realization of FSO communication within a turbulence channel DC is possible with good performance. If the turbulence is strong, we can improve the performance by using different mitigation techniques or by using hybrid wired and FSO connections.

中文翻译：

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自由空间光学数据中心通道的表征

现有的有线内部数据中心（DC）网络遭受流量拥塞，可伸缩性低，灵活性低以及功耗增加的困扰。为了解决该问题，需要从有线内部DC连接变为无线内部DC连接。可以为下一代内部DC通信提供解决方案的技术之一是使用自由空间光（FSO）通信。但是，在DC网络中存在会影响FSO通信性能的湍流。在这封信中，我们介绍了一个直流实验，该实验旨在表征FSO内部直流湍流通道的性能。我们发现接收信号的pdf根据理论预测呈对数正态分布，并且接收到的误码率值小于10 ^-16在DC的所有区域中，它都比DC通信所需的最小值10 ^-14好。这意味着在湍流通道DC内以良好的性能实现FSO通信是可能的。如果湍流很强，我们可以通过使用不同的缓解技术或混合使用有线和FSO连接来提高性能。