Reducing network energy consumption via sleeping and rate-adaptation

We present the design and evaluation of two forms of power management schemes that reduce the energy consumption of networks. The first is based on putting network components to sleep during idle times, reducing energy consumed in the absence of packets. The second is based on adapting the rate of network operation to the offered workload, reducing the energy consumed when actively processing packets. For real-world traffic workloads and topologies and using power constants drawn from existing network equipment, we show that even simple schemes for sleeping or rate-adaptation can offer substantial savings. For instance, our practical algorithms stand to halve energy consumption for lightly utilized networks…