Reducing Power Consumption in Backbone Networks

Abstract—According to several studies, the power consumption of the Internet accounts for up to 10 % of the worldwide energy consumption, and several initiatives are being put into place to reduce the power consumption of the ICT sector in general. To this goal, we propose a novel approach to switch off network nodes and links while still guaranteeing full connectivity and maximum link utilization. After showing that the problem falls in the class of capacitated multi-commodity flow problems, and therefore it is NP-complete, we propose some heuristic algorithms to solve it. Simulation results in a realistic scenario show that it is possible to reduce the number of links and nodes currently used by up to 30 % and 50 % respectively during off-peak hours, while offering the same service quality

Life is short. The impact of power states on base station lifetime

We study the impact of power state transitions on the lifetime of base stations (BSs) in mobile networks. In particular, we propose a model to estimate the lifetime decrease/increase as a consequence of the application of power state changes. The model takes into account both hardware (HW) parameters, which depend on the materials used to build the device, and power state parameters, that instead depend on how and when power state transitions take place. More in depth, we consider the impact of different power states when a BS is active, and one sleep mode state when a BS is powered off. When a BS reduces the power consumption, its lifetime tends to increase. However, when a BS changes the power state, its lifetime tends to be decreased. Thus, there is a tradeoff between these two effects. Our results, obtained over universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) and long term evolution (LTE) case studies, indicate the need of a careful management of the power state transitions in order to not deteriorate the BS lifetime, and consequently to not increase the associated reparation/replacement costs

Distributed algorithms for green IP networks2012 Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM Workshops

We propose a novel distributed approach to exploit sleep mode capabilities of links in an Internet Service Provider network. Differently from other works, neither a central controller, nor the knowledge of the current traffic matrix is assumed, favoring a major step towards making sleep mode enabled networks practical in the current Internet architecture. Our algorithms are able to automatically adapt the state of network links to the actual traffic in the network. Moreover, the required input parameters are intuitive and easy to set. Extensive simulations that consider a real network and traffic demand prove that our algorithms are able to follow the daily variation of traffic, reducing energy consumption up to 70% during off peak time, with little overheads and while guaranteeing Quality of Service constraint

How Much Can The Internet Be Greened?

Abstract—The power consumption of the Internet is becoming more and more a key issue, and several projects are studying how to reduce its energy consumption. In this paper, we provide a first evaluation of the amount of redundant resources (nodes and links) that can be powered off from a network topology to reduce power consumption. We first formulate a theoretical evaluation that exploits random graph theory to estimate the fraction of devices that can be removed from the topology still guaranteeing connectivity. Then we compare theoretical results with simulation results using realistic Internet topologies. Results, although preliminary, show that large energy savings can be achieved by accurately turning off nodes and links, e.g., during off-peak time. We show also that the non-cooperative design of the current Internet severely impacts the possible energy saving, suggesting that a cooperative approach can be investigated further. I

Power-Aware Routing and Wavelength Assignment in Optical Networks

We introduce the Power-Aware RWA problem, whose goal is to accommodate lightpaths in wavelength routing networks minimizing the power consumption. Formulation, algorithms, and results are presented, showing that significant power savings are possibl

Lifetime-aware cloud data centers: models and performance evaluation

We present a model to evaluate the server lifetime in cloud data centers (DCs). In particular, when the server power level is decreased, the failure rate tends to be reduced as a consequence of the limited number of components powered on. However, the variation between the different power states triggers a failure rate increase. We therefore consider these two effects in a server lifetime model, subject to an energy-aware management policy. We then evaluate our model in a realistic case study. Our results show that the impact on the server lifetime is far from negligible. As a consequence, we argue that a lifetime-aware approach should be pursued to decide how and when to apply a power state change to a server

NetCluster: a Clustering-Based Framework for Internet Tomography

Abstract — In this paper, Internet data collected via passive measurement are analyzed to obtain localization information on nodes by clustering (i.e., grouping together) nodes that exhibit similar network path properties. Since traditional clustering algorithms fail to correctly identify clusters of homogeneous nodes, we propose a novel framework, named “NetCluster”, suited to analyze Internet measurement datasets. We show that the proposed framework correctly analyzes synthetically generated traces. Finally, we apply it to real traces collected at the access link of our campus LAN and discuss the network characteristics as seen at the vantage point. I. INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATIONS The Internet is a complex distributed system which continues to grow and evolve. The unregulated and heterogeneous structure of the current Internet makes it challenging to obtai