We consider circuit routing with an objective of minimizing energy, in a
network of routers that are speed scalable and that may be shutdown when idle.
We consider both multicast routing and unicast routing. It is known that this
energy minimization problem can be reduced to a capacitated flow network design
problem, where vertices have a common capacity but arbitrary costs, and the
goal is to choose a minimum cost collection of vertices whose induced subgraph
will support the specified flow requirements. For the multicast (single-sink)
capacitated design problem we give a polynomial-time algorithm that is
O(log^3n)-approximate with O(log^4 n) congestion. This translates back to a
O(log ^(4{\alpha}+3) n)-approximation for the multicast energy-minimization
routing problem, where {\alpha} is the polynomial exponent in the dynamic power
used by a router. For the unicast (multicommodity) capacitated design problem
we give a polynomial-time algorithm that is O(log^5 n)-approximate with
O(log^12 n) congestion, which translates back to a O(log^(12{\alpha}+5)
n)-approximation for the unicast energy-minimization routing problem.Comment: 22 pages (full version of STOC 2014 paper
