Green Networking: The Proof Is in the ‘Putting’

“Ixia and Juniper are making a significant commitment to elevating the discussion of IP energy efficiency,” said David Gerhart, vice president of business development of Emerson Network Power’s Energy Systems business.

Atul Bhatnagar, president and CEO of Ixia, said network equipment manufacturers and service providers have an immediate need for repeatable, reliable, standards-based measurements of active energy consumption. “IxGreen provides exactly what’s needed — energy per unit of performance at all levels of stress. Ixia is unique in that it provides high-stress device traffic, while measuring energy consumption, and correlating the two,” he said.

One of the problems with power efficiency today also is one of network efficiency. According to LBNL, Internet backbone network utilization is only 15 percent. Private line networks and local area networks are even less efficient at 3-5 percent and 1 percent, respectively. Even AT&T’s switched voice network is only 33 percent utilized. However, the focus on being green so far has been on servers and cooling data center equipment.

“Each kilowatt for IT requires another for power and cooling,” said Bruce Nordman of the LBNL, who added that total energy use for network services is unknown.

According to the Energy Analysis Department of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at LBNL, there are three efforts targeting efficiency in Ethernet networks, such as that delivered by the Juniper 1600 and other core routers. The first is the Adaptive Link Rate. This technology allows Ethernet data links to adjust their speed and therefore their power, to actual traffic levels versus the full, mostly underutilized bandwidth rate. Proxying allows devices to enter sleep mode while other hardware maintains their network presence. And finally, energy-efficient specifications help manufacturers and consumers move the market for network equipment to products that consume less electricity.

Overall, the ECR metric creates a common energy denominator between different network and telecom systems operating within a single class. The ECR methodology defines the procedures and conditions for measurements and calculations, and can be readily implemented with industry-standard test equipment. Participating companies feel the ECR framework and methodology is vendor-neutral and can be adapted easily to upcoming energy-related ICT standards and legislations.