Fine-Grained Energy-Efficient Consolidation in SDN Networks and Devices

The constant evolution and expansion of the Internet and Internet-related technologies has exposed the limitations of the current networking infrastructures, which are represented by the unsustainable power consumption and low level of scalability. In fact, these infrastructures are still based on the typical, ossified architecture of the TCP/IP paradigm. In order to cope with the Future Internet requirements, recent contributions envisage an evolution towards more programmable and efficient paradigms. In this respect, this paper describes the basic issues, the technical approaches, and the methodologies for the implementation of power management primitives in the context of the emerging Software Defined Networking. In detail, we propose to extend one of the most prominent solutions aimed at increasing networking flexibility, the OpenFlow Protocol, to integrate the energy-aware capabilities offered by the Green Abstraction Layer (GAL). However, the mere introduction of node-level solutions would be of little or no use in the absence of a network-wide management scheme to guarantee inter-operability and effectiveness of the proposed architecture. In this respect, this work also proposes an analytical model for the management of a network with these capabilities. The results will show how our solutions are well suited to provide a scalable and efficient network architecture able to manage the orchestration and consolidation of the available resources.