Energy-aware equipment for next-generation networks

Besides a more widespread sensitivity to ecological issues, the interest in energy-efficient network technologies springs from heavy and critical economic needs, since both energy cost and network electrical requirements show a continuous growth, with an alarming trend over the past years. In this contribution, we explore and try to evaluate the feasibility and the impact of power management mechanisms on network equipment performance. We discuss and characterize how these energy-aware enhancements can be applied inside device architectures working in access and core networks. Finally, we show how a state-of-the-art multi-Core SW Router based on COTS HW can effectively modulate the trade-off between its energy requirements and network performance. Copyright 2009 ACM.