TREND big picture on energy-efficient backbone networks

Abstract

Abstract-The ICT (Information and CommunicationTechnology) sector has recently been identified as a growing contributor to worldwide greenhouse gases emissions and power consumption. This has triggered interest for more energy efficient ways to design and operate telecommunication networks. We present an overview of the solutions proposed within the European network of excellence TREND focusing on core and metro networks including data centers. Potential savings are presented and discussed with respect to their impact and applicability within the global picture.

A Quantitative Survey of the Power Saving Potential in IP-Over-WDM Backbone Networks

“…However, we think each of these works suffers from a number of different shortcomings. Specifically, we found that some studies either (a) lack sufficient references or traceability of the quoted savings ( [8], [2]), (b) provide an assessment that is too rough ( [9]), or (c) do not provide a combined saving potential ( [11], [12]). Finally, while GreenTouch's Green Meter [10] does address the above issues, the limited number of referred works does not help the reader to get an idea on the agreement of the given power savings across the research community outside of GreenTouch.…”

“…While the fact that some of the approaches are evaluated on a common benchmark presents a rare (but deeply needed) advantage over the other works, this is also stems from the fact that most of the cited works refer to only a few partners in the GreenTouch consortium; as such, the consensus over its findings across the research community outside of GreenTouch cannot be assessed by the reader. The two works by Le Rouzic et al [11], [12] present an interesting overview of the different backbone saving potentials as identified in the European TREND network of excellence. However, the quoted savings are mainly isolated values; their interplay and the combined saving potential is not given.…”

“…Data compression -Data compression, or source coding 12 , encodes information in such a way that it requires fewer bits than in the original representation. Parker et al [9] estimate its potential for power reduction in photonic networking to be up to 50%.…”

“…That said, the influence of the compression energy could drop with continuously more efficient Digital Signal Processings (DSPs) units [9], [66], and become negligible for content that is accessed by many users over a period of time. Third, any advances in compression techniques will probably be cancelled out by encoding more information and new modalities (such as stereoscopic view, or a higher dynamic range for audio or video) into bit streams 12 Source coding should not be confused with channel coding and network coding. Channel coding in effect adds redundancy (instead of removing redundancy, as source coding does), to reduce the bit error rate in noisy communication channels.…”