Home // International Journal On Advances in Networks and Services, volume 5, numbers 3 and 4, 2012 // View article

Using BGP to Reduce Power Consumption in Core and Edge Networks: A Metric-Based Approach

Authors:
Shankar Raman
Balaji Venkat
Gaurav Raina

Keywords: Autonomous Systems, Border Gateway Protocol, Low-power Paths, Traffic Engineering.

Abstract:
Power reduction methods at the device and the network levels in the Internet continue to attract attention. At the device level, power reduction is usually achieved by using low-power consuming devices or by switching off unused components. At the network level; re-engineering, reconfiguring, and re-routing of data packets can help in reducing power consumption. In this paper, we present a metric-based approach to route data packets through a low-power path from a source to a destination at the level of Autonomous Systems (AS). We propose that the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) exchange a new attribute; namely, consumed-power to available-bandwidth of an AS with neighbouring AS. Using this proposed metric, the AS Border Routers can readily identify the low-power path from a source to a destination. We propose appropriate modifications to the BGPs path selection algorithm to include the low-power path criteria. We consider the effects that the proposed approach has on two parameters: (a) power reduction achieved as compared to the shortest path routing, and (b) the increase in path length from source to destination. The increase in the number of hops would be a consequence of re-routing through low-power AS. Simulations show that there could be significant gains in power reduction, if an increase in the number of hops is acceptable. Our work suggests that this trade off merits consideration as the power consumption of an AS is significant.

Pages: 367 to 376

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2012. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 31, 2012

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2644