Optimum traffic allocation in bundled energy-efficient ethernet links

The energy demands of Ethernet links have been an active focus of research in the recent years. This work has enabled a new generation of energy-efficient Ethernet (EEE) interfaces able to adapt their power consumption to the actual traffic demands, thus yielding significant energy savings. With the energy consumption of single network connections being a solved problem, in this paper, we focus on the energy demands of link aggregates that are commonly used to increase the capacity of a network connection. We build on known energy models of single EEE links to derive the energy demands of the whole aggregate as a function on how the traffic load is spread among its powered links. We then provide a practical method to share the load that minimizes overall energy consumption with controlled packet delay and prove that it is valid for a wide range of EEE links. Finally, we validate our method with both synthetic and real traffic traces captured in Internet backbones.Xunta de Galici

Implementing energy saving algorithms for Ethernet link aggregates with ONOS

During the last few years, there has been plenty of research for reducing energy consumption in telecommunication infrastructure. However, many of the proposals remain unim-plemented due to the lack of flexibility in legacy networks. In this paper we demonstrate how the software defined networking (SDN) capabilities of current networking equipment can be used to implement some of these energy saving algorithms. In particular, we developed an ONOS application to realize an energy-aware traffic scheduler to a bundle link made up of Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) links between two SDN switches. We show how our application is able to dynamically adapt to the traffic characteristics and save energy by concentrating the traffic on as few ports as possible. This way, unused ports remain in Low Power Idle (LPI) state most of the time, saving energy.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

QoS-aware Energy-Efficient Algorithms for Ethernet Link Aggregates in Software-Defined Networks

In this paper we discuss the implementation of an ONOS application that leverages Energy-Efficient Ethernet links between a pair of switches and shares incoming traffic among the link in the way that minimizes overall energy usage. As the straightforward solution can result in excessive traffic delay, we provide two alternative solutions to meet the demands of real time traffic arriving to the link aggregate. Experimental results show that our final application can keep low energy usage while meeting the demands of time-sensitive traffic, as long as the latter does not represent an excessive share of traffic demand.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure

Novel Resource and Energy Management for 5G Integrated Backhaul/Fronthaul (5G-Crosshaul)

The integration of both fronthaul and backhaul into a single transport network (namely, 5G-Crosshaul) is envisioned for the future 5G transport networks. This requires a fully integrated and unified management of the fronthaul and backhaul resources in a cost-efficient, scalable and flexible way through the deployment of an SDN/NFV control framework. This paper presents the designed 5G-Crosshaul architecture, two selected SDN/NFV applications targeting for cost-efficient resource and energy usage: the Resource Management Application (RMA) and the Energy Management and Monitoring Application (EMMA). The former manages 5G-Crosshaul resources (network, computing and storage resources). The latter is a special version of RMA with the focus on the objectives of optimizing the energy consumption and minimizing the energy footprint of the 5G-Crosshaul infrastructure. Besides, EMMA is applied to the mmWave mesh network and the high speed train scenarios. In particular, we present the key application design with their main components and the interactions with each other and with the control plane, and then we present the proposed application optimization algorithms along with initial results. The first results demonstrate that the proposed RMA is able to cost-efficiently utilize the Crosshaul resources of heterogeneous technologies, while EMMA can achieve significant energy savings through energy-efficient routing of traffic flows. For experiments in real system, we also set up Proof of Concepts (PoCs) for both applications in order to perform real trials in the field.© 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works

Energy-efficient Traffic Allocation in SDN-based Backhaul Networks: Theory and Implementation

5G networks are expected to be highly energy efficient, with a 10 times lower consumption than today’s systems. An effective way to achieve such a goal is to act on the backhaul network by controlling the nodes operational state and the allocation of traffic flows. To this end, in this paper we formulate energy-efficient flow routing on the backhaul network as an optimization problem. In light of its complexity, which impairs the solution in large-scale scenarios, we then propose a heuristic approach. Our scheme, named EMMA, aims to both turn off idle nodes and concentrate traffic on the smallest possible set of links, which in its turn increases the number of idle nodes. We implement EMMA on top of ONOS and derive experimental results by emulating the network through Mininet. Our results show that EMMA provides excellent energy saving performance, which closely approaches the optimum. In larger network scenarios, the gain in energy consumption that EMMA provides with respect to the simple benchmark where all nodes are active, is extremely high under medium-low traffic load

Ethernet-Networking Technology: A Surface Review on Current Issues

Ethernet has evolved throughout the years and still remains relevant in modern communication applications. Its reliability and easy configurability is one of the most liked feature for device communications. Hence, in this paper a surface review upon Ethernet is carried out. Several aspects of Ethernet and its application is investigated on its current researches and achievements. Ethernet applications is used in leading design technologies in the automotive and aviation industry another popular application of it is in the industrial sector. The energy usage of Ethernet and its common issues are also reviewed. From the reviews done, it can be clearly seen that the role of Ethernet in modern network technology is still important as its features are desirable and its flaws consistently being overcome despite the issues of the Ethernet

Web Content Delivery Optimization

Milliseconds matters, when they’re counted. If we consider the life of the universe into one single year, then on 31 December at 11:59:59.5 PM, “speed” was transportation’s concern, and now after 500 milliseconds it is web’s, and no one knows whose concern it would be in coming milliseconds, but at this very moment; this thesis proposes an optimization method, mainly for content delivery on slow connections. The method utilizes a proxy as a middle box to fetch the content; requested by a client, from a single or multiple web servers, and bundles all of the fetched image content types that fits into the bundling policy; inside a JavaScript file in Base64 format. This optimization method reduces the number of HTTP requests between the client and multiple web servers as a result of its proposed bundling solution, and at the same time optimizes the HTTP compression efficiency as a result of its proposed method of aggregative textual content compression. Page loading time results of the test web pages; which were specially designed and developed to capture the optimum benefits of the proposed method; proved up to 81% faster page loading time for all connection types. However, other tests in non-optimal situations such as webpages which use “Lazy Loading” techniques, showed just 35% to 50% benefits, that is only achievable on 2G and 3G connections (0.2 Mbps – 15 Mbps downlink) and not faster connections

Energy-Efficient Softwarized Networks: A Survey

With the dynamic demands and stringent requirements of various applications, networks need to be high-performance, scalable, and adaptive to changes. Researchers and industries view network softwarization as the best enabler for the evolution of networking to tackle current and prospective challenges. Network softwarization must provide programmability and flexibility to network infrastructures and allow agile management, along with higher control for operators. While satisfying the demands and requirements of network services, energy cannot be overlooked, considering the effects on the sustainability of the environment and business. This paper discusses energy efficiency in modern and future networks with three network softwarization technologies: SDN, NFV, and NS, introduced in an energy-oriented context. With that framework in mind, we review the literature based on network scenarios, control/MANO layers, and energy-efficiency strategies. Following that, we compare the references regarding approach, evaluation method, criterion, and metric attributes to demonstrate the state-of-the-art. Last, we analyze the classified literature, summarize lessons learned, and present ten essential concerns to open discussions about future research opportunities on energy-efficient softwarized networks.Comment: Accepted draft for publication in TNSM with minor updates and editin

Assessing the Impact of EEE Standard on Energy Consumed by Commercial Grade Network Switches

This book chapter is adapted from [1] and it is closely linked to work published in [2] and [3]. Reducing power consumption of network equipment has been both driven by a need to reduce the ecological footprint of the cloud as well as the im-mense power costs of data centers. As data centers, core networks and conse-quently, the cloud, constantly increase in size, their power consumption should be mitigated. Ethernet, the most widely used access network still remains the biggest communication technology used in core networks and cloud infrastructures. The Energy-Efficient Ethernet or EEE standard introduced by IEEE in 2010, aims to reduce the power consumption of EEE ports by transitioning Ethernet ports into a low power mode when traffic is not present. As statistics show that the average utilization rate of ethernet links is 5 percent on desktops and 30 percent in data centers, the power saving potential of EEE could be immense. This research aims to assess the benefits of deploying EEE and create a power consumption model for network switches with and without EEE. Our measurements show that an EEE port runs at 12-15% of its total power when in low power mode. Therefore, the power savings can exceed 80% when there is no traffic. However, our measure-ments equally show that the power consumption of a single port represents less than 1% of the total power consumption of the switch. The base power consumed by the switch without any port is still significantly high and is not affected by EEE. Experiment results also show that the base power consumption of switches does not significantly increase with the size of the switches. Doubling the size of the switch between 24 and 48 ports increases power consumption by 35.39%. EEE has a greater effect on bigger switches, with a power (or energy) gain on the EEE-enabled 48-port switch compared to 2 x EEE-enabled 24-port switch. On the other hand, it seems to be more energy efficient to use 2 separate 24-port switches (NO EEE) than 2 separate 24-port switches (With EEE)