Summary
Over recent years, energy conservation in Internet backbone networks has been proposed to reduce economic cost and environmental pollution produced by networking sectors. In this regard, we propose a new dynamic vertex cover‐based green algorithm (DVCGA) in order to conserve energy. Our solution considers online local/global traffic knowledge to switch off some underutilized network devices during nonpeak periods and reswitch on some sleep devices in congestion situation. In addition, DVCGA does not require any centralized controller and uses only information provided by a link‐state protocol. Results, obtained by real network scenario, show that up to 28% of network nodes and up to 82% of the maximum number of switchable links are switched off after DVCGA running. In addition, network performance metrics such as delay and packet delivery ratio during DVCGA running are close to original network and better than similar works. Moreover, the number of device state changes in the effect of DVCGA execution during network running is lower than similar proposals resulting in low network overhead.