Green Networking: The Proof Is in the ‘Putting’

When it comes to calling one’s company environmentally conscious, or green-friendly, the proof is in the putting — putting sound data behind your claim.

Before Juniper Networks could claim an energy efficient core router, it turned to Ixia and its IxGreen performance test system and its iSimCity facility to provide the sound data.

Ixia and Juniper, along with Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL) formed the Energy Consumption Rating (ECR) Initiative, a framework for measuring the energy efficiency of network and telecom devices. (The LBNL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, Calif. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California.) Key definitions and methodology of the proposed ECR metric initiative were introduced last week at a public iSimCity event in Santa Clara, Calif.

At the event, ECR readings were used in a multivendor environment consisting of Ixia’s IxGreen platform, Juniper’s T1600 core router and Emerson’s NetSure 701 DC power system. Ixia acted as the control point for fully integrated measurements and comprehensive report generation with time-correlated energy and external load analysis. Juniper was looking for an energy efficiency rating of 9.1 watts/gbps in the core router class test using traffic generated by Ixia test equipment, which comprised 64 IxYukon 10 gigabit Ethernet test ports mounted in an Ixia XM12 chassis.

Juniper got what it was looking for. As a result, it also pleased one of its environmentally conscious carrier customers: NTT America. “It is encouraging to see equipment providers working together to create and define standards in this area," said Kazuhiro Gomi, CTO of NTT America and vice president of the NTT Com Global IP Network. "Efficiency was also part of the reason NTT America selected Juniper's T1600 core router, which enabled us to cut power consumption by as much as 20 percent, while doubling the network capacity without any increase in data center space requirements."

Ixia’s IxGreen is the industry’s first fully integrated test and measurement solution dedicated to green initiatives. It allows the measurement of a device’s power consumption at various load conditions utilizing real-world application traffic profiles. “IxGreen, in conjunction with Ixia’s platform and test application, provides stateful device load and correlates traffic throughput to energy consumption,” said Vic Alston, senior vice president of product development at Ixia.

IxGreen also offers fully integrated energy measurements, comprehensive reports with time-correlated energy and external load data graphs. It provides advanced computations and detailed analysis of the conducted test and real-time performance-per-energy statistics.