Power usage efficiency with a modular routing protocol

Abstract

Recent years have seen major efforts to contain the environmental footprint of the Internet. The last decade has witnessed revolutionary research to address some of the challenges faced in the Internet. This article describes an investigative framework for determining the energy savings incurred with new routing protocols and routers. The framework is applied to a real ISP network - the AT&T ISP network in the United States. It describes techniques to collect statistics from such large networks and analyze them. The statistics are then used to study the energy consumption in the ISP network both with routers running the current routing protocol, which is Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and also with routers running the new protocol. The cost models and energy savings studies applied to large ISP networks as presented in this article is the first of its kind. As evidenced from this study significant energy benefits and cost savings thereof can be realized with the proposed modular routing protocol.