Introducing routing standby in network nodes to improve energy savings techniques

In this work we propose the routing standby model to save energy in an IP networks during low traffic hours. This model is based on the ability to put in standby mode all the IP processing functionalities of a network node. The main feature of this model is to save a great amount of energy, about the 50% of the total power consumption of a router, avoiding the drawback of a classical node standby, related to the removal of a node from the network. We also define a routing standby algorithm, based on the well-known Floyd-Warshall algorithm, able to detect a set of routing standby nodes so that traffic requirements are satisfied. The performance evaluation show that about the 50% of network routers can avoid IP operations when traffic decreases over 75% of peak value; in this way a remarkable energy saving can be obtained.