Optimum Traffic Allocation in Bundled Energy-Efficient Ethernet Links

Abstract

The energy demands of Ethernet links have been an active focus of research in the recent years. This work has enabled a new generation of Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) interfaces able to adapt their power consumption to the actual traffic demands, thus yielding significant energy savings. With the energy consumption of single network connections being a solved problem, in this paper we focus on the energy demands of link aggregates that are commonly used to increase the capacity of a network connection. We build on known energy models of single EEE links to derive the energy demands of the whole aggregate as a function on how the traffic load is spread among its powered links. We then provide a practical method to share the load that minimizes overall energy consumption with controlled packet delay, and prove that it is valid for a wide range of EEE links. Finally, we validate our method with both synthetic and real traffic traces captured in Internet backbones.