Title :
Saving energy in LAN switches: New methods of packet coalescing for Energy Efficient Ethernet
Author :
Mostowfi, Mehrgan ; Christensen, Ken
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Comput. Sci. & Eng., Univ. of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA
Abstract :
Small or home office (SOHO) Ethernet LAN switches consume about 8 TWh per year in the U.S. alone. Despite normally low traffic load and numerous periods of idleness, these switches typically stay fully powered-on at all times. With the standardization of Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE), Ethernet interfaces can be put into a Low Power Idle (LPI) mode during idle periods when there are no packets to transmit. This paper proposes and evaluates a new EEE policy of synchronous coalescing of packets in network hosts and edge routers. This policy provides extended idle periods for all ports of a LAN switch and thus enables energy savings deeper than in the Ethernet PHY only. We evaluate our method using an ns-2 simulation model of a LAN switch. We show that our method can reduce the overall energy use of a LAN switch by about 40%, while introducing limited and controlled effects on typical Internet traffic and TCP.
Keywords :
local area networks; telecommunication switching; telecommunication traffic; EEE policy; Ethernet LAN switches; Ethernet PHY; Ethernet interfaces; Internet traffic; SOHO; TCP; edge routers; energy efficient Ethernet; energy savings; home office; idle periods; low power idle mode; low traffic load; network hosts; ns-2 simulation model; packet coalescing; small office; synchronous coalescing; Delay; Energy consumption; Internet; Local area networks; Servers; Switches; Synchronization; Energy Efficient Ethernet; Ethernet switch; green Internet; synchronized coalescing;
Conference_Titel :
Green Computing Conference and Workshops (IGCC), 2011 International
Conference_Location :
Orlando, FL
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4577-1222-7
DOI :
10.1109/IGCC.2011.6008547
