AWS Buries Fat-Tree — Random Graph Networks Are Now the Cloud Default
AWS has made expander-graph flat topology the global default for cloud datacenter fabrics — sixty-nine percent fewer routers, thirty-three percent more throughput, and forty percent less network power. This Friday we also cover Anthropic filing for IPO the same week they argued someone should pause AI development, NANOG ninety-seven wrapping on the SSH-as-structural-debt thesis, and a full week-in-review.
Welcome to Amaze Networks for Friday, June fifth. AWS just announced that the fat-tree topology — the architecture that has defined datacenter networking for twenty-five years — is no longer their default. And that sentence alone is worth your commute.
I've been sitting on this one since the Amazon Science post dropped last week. The full paper is out, the production numbers are real, and honestly the thing I keep coming back to is how quietly this happened. They've been running it since end of twenty twenty-four.
Let's make sure people understand what we're talking about. The fat-tree topology — leaf-spine with hierarchical spine layers — has been the safe, proven choice for datacenter fabric for decades. What did AWS replace it with?
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