Three smart ways for the network to save power

BANGALORE, INDIA: As governments, business communities and the media have turned their focus to green environmental issues and global warming, enterprises are seeking creative and innovative ways to reduce their energy consumption and as a direct result driving a reduced the carbon footprint for the organization.

A valuable part of the Green movement is to create momentum for the cause; where simple actions and smart methods of running electrically connected devices, repeated many times over, can really add up and make a great difference. This extends into a number of differing markets, such as healthcare facilities, schools and universities, manufacturers, retailers, financial centers, hotels and hospitality as within Call Centers, and Data Centers. As a direct result of reducing energy consumption, the cost of operations will also reduce for the participating organization.

Given that Information Technology represents one of the largest consumers of energy within the corporate environment, IT professionals that oversee the procurement and operation of enterprise networks and computing data centers have the ability to meaningfully impact energy consumption. What can be achieved during the infrastructure selection process, the solution design and deployment phase and then the ongoing network operation that will result in energy savings? 

Extreme Networks suggests three energy saving ideas:

1. Procuring Ethernet switch products that consume less power

2. Designing the network to use less power

3. Intelligently optimizing power to edge ports and connected devices

1.  Product Procurement: The IT networking team can seek out network equipment that consumes less power and factor this attribute into the RFP process from the outset.  Comparison shopping with respect to power consumption can make a real difference over the life of the network.  Much like a refrigerator or similar household appliance can save money from the day it is purchased when compared to older generations of appliances, so too can Ethernet switch technology.  Look for Ethernet switches that consume less energy during normal operation as they will save you energy and operating budget.

For example, a typical Ethernet modular switch supporting 400 total ports can consume between 6 and 12 watts per port or between 2.6 and 5.2 Kilowatts per device.  With updated technology and innovative, power saving design,  Extreme Networks offers modular switches (1) that support 400 ports and consume only 1.3 Kilowatts (or 3.2 watts per port). The proliferation of devices of this type throughout the enterprise can results in operating cost savings and the reduction of the carbon footprint. 

2. Network Design: Today’s Local Area Network (LAN) can be designed to use power more efficiently.  One route to achieve this is to collapse tiers of the network and as a result reducing the number of switches required to serve the enterprise. 

Traditional LANs were designed with various fixed and modular switches playing specific roles in three distinct areas.  At the edge of the network, fixed switches would connect users and devices at 10/100Mb speeds.  At the aggregation layer, another class of switch became a ‘connection point’ to connect all the edge devices and traffic and feed it into the network backbones and to centralized data centers. The final tier was the network backbone or core, where the largest and most powerful modular switches connected traffic from the aggregation layer to servers and between locations. 

With the introduction of more powerful Ethernet switches and technologic breakthroughs, such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet speeds and system resiliency over the last five years, network designers now have the ability to collapse the traditional three tier network into just two tiers - the edge and core network - removing the aggregation layer and its associated energy consumption.

The capital savings associated with the upfront purchase followed by the on-going savings from reduced energy consumption through the use of a smaller number of Ethernet switches in a Two Tier design brings tangible and real benefit for both IT managers who have to manage and operate fewer devices, and the environment where less power is needed to run the network.

3. Optimized Power Management:  The third on-going method is to save energy through the network using native software intelligence to optimize powered devices connected at the network’s edge. Managing edge devices and network ports is similar to the way a maintenance and operations team for a facility turns out lights and other appliances in a large building when it is not occupied. 

Today’s Ethernet switches support 802.11af standards-based Power over Ethernet (PoE) to enable the transmission of power over the copper twisted-pair wiring to the devices connect at the network edge, transmitting 48 volts of DC electrical power along with data bandwidth connectivity to each port.  Thus, devices such as IP phones, cameras and Wireless LAN (802.11) Access Points (APs) can be powered by the network while also receiving data bandwidth. This saves network and facilities staff the cost and complexity of separately wiring a building for both the LAN and power needs at every network node.

Automated power management through optimization of PoE devices can reduce costs and power usage associated with running the network edge by between 50 and 75 percent, a very significant amount that will reduces a businesses carbon footprint and allows them to more intelligently and proactively manage and operate their LAN infrastructure.

Extreme Networks uniquely addresses power consumption across the network including edge devices with its revolutionary Universal Port technology - a layer of intelligence that provides event-driven provisioning and automated operations throughout the network.

One of the most innovative functions of Universal Port is allowing a network manager to choose the exact hours of operation of a given network port, dictating when powered network ports (POE) will provide power and when they should be automatically shut down when not in use or at the end of the business day.  Through this technology, network connected Voice-over-IP handsets that consume energy and power every hour can immediately be powered down at the end of the business day and then woken up the next day.  Energy savings associated with intelligent power management of edge devices with Universal Approach can be over 50 percent.

Conclusion: Saving energy and building a green future takes thought and commitment. Extreme Networks is glad to contribute innovate and unique technology and solutions to enable organizations to achieve their goals of ‘Going Green’ through the deployment of efficient devices, suggesting intelligent network design and providing unique software that controls the environment.

1. BlackDiamond 8800 modular switch

The article is written by Harpreet Chadha, senior director of product management at Extreme Networks