Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L47/00—Traffic control in data switching networks
  • H04L47/10—Flow control; Congestion control
  • H04L47/41—Flow control; Congestion control by acting on aggregated flows or links
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
  • H04L12/02—Details
  • H04L12/12—Arrangements for remote connection or disconnection of substations or of equipment thereof
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
  • H04L12/28—Data switching networks characterised by path configuration, e.g. LAN [Local Area Networks] or WAN [Wide Area Networks]
  • H04L12/40—Bus networks
  • H04L12/407—Bus networks with decentralised control
  • H04L12/413—Bus networks with decentralised control with random access, e.g. carrier-sense multiple-access with collision detection [CSMA-CD]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
  • H04L41/08—Configuration management of networks or network elements
  • H04L41/0803—Configuration setting
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
  • H04L41/08—Configuration management of networks or network elements
  • H04L41/0803—Configuration setting
  • H04L41/0823—Configuration setting characterised by the purposes of a change of settings, e.g. optimising configuration for enhancing reliability
  • H04L41/0833—Configuration setting characterised by the purposes of a change of settings, e.g. optimising configuration for enhancing reliability for reduction of network energy consumption
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L43/00—Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
  • H04L43/08—Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
  • H04L43/0876—Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L45/00—Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks
  • H04L45/12—Shortest path evaluation
  • H04L45/125—Shortest path evaluation based on throughput or bandwidth
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L45/00—Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks
  • H04L45/24—Multipath
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L47/00—Traffic control in data switching networks
  • H04L47/10—Flow control; Congestion control
  • H04L47/29—Flow control; Congestion control using a combination of thresholds
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L47/00—Traffic control in data switching networks
  • H04L47/70—Admission control; Resource allocation
  • H04L47/72—Admission control; Resource allocation using reservation actions during connection setup
  • H04L47/726—Reserving resources in multiple paths to be used simultaneously
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
  • H04L41/08—Configuration management of networks or network elements
  • H04L41/0803—Configuration setting
  • H04L41/0823—Configuration setting characterised by the purposes of a change of settings, e.g. optimising configuration for enhancing reliability
• • Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
  • Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
  • Y02D—CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES [ICT], I.E. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AIMING AT THE REDUCTION OF THEIR OWN ENERGY USE
  • Y02D30/00—Reducing energy consumption in communication networks
  • Y02D30/50—Reducing energy consumption in communication networks in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Definitions

• the invention relates to a method and to a device for operat ⁇ ing a component of a communication network. Also, a system comprising at least one such device is suggested.
• the solution presented relates to, but is not restricted to transport networks, deployment and configuration of network elements, traffic management, and operation of networks or network elements.
• Related networks may comprise various tech ⁇ nologies and modes of operation, including, e.g., wired and wireless interconnection, optical and electrical signal transmission, circuit and packet based transfer modes, and in particular IP or Ethernet based data transfer,
• a network node may be any suitable node in a network that receives and transfers data to another node or a network device such as, e.g., a switch, router, repeater, hub, cross connect, etc.
• a switch can in particular be a network device that receives and/or sends data to another network device such as, e.g., a switch, router, repeater, hub, cross connect, etc.
• a switch may comprise a base chassis with a plurality of slots, wherein line cards may be inserted as required.
• the switch may have be ⁇ tween, e.g., 2 and 20 slots for inserting line cards and it may be deployed, e.g., in a data center, network edges and/or cores.
• a line card may have a number of ports and port ca ⁇ pacities.
• a line card may have 24 ports, each port supporting 1 Gbps in the full-duplex mode, and/or a line card may have 4 ports, each port supporting 10 Gbps.
• a port may be a specific point on a switch that allows physical con- nection to some other device such as another switch, router, repeater, hub, cross connect, etc. Network data can be re ⁇ ceived and/or transmitted by a port. Ports are usually lo ⁇ cated on a line card. Examples of ports include an Ethernet port, an SCSI port or other physical ports.
• a configuration of a switch may be any suitable configuration for operating the switch and it may comprise different combinations of ac- tivated line cards and active ports.
• a port can be considered active if it is currently sending and/or receiving data or has been used to send and/or receive data within a predeter ⁇ mined amount of time.
• the line card can be deemed enabled if it is plugged in and if it consumes power.
• a line card can be deemed disabled if it is rendered inoperable to send and/or receive data for the switch. Also, when disabled the line card consumes significantly less power than when enabled, for instance at least 80% less power than when enabled.
• a network link may be associated with at least one port on each of its ends, respectively.
• Operational expenditure of a network or a network component comprises costs for power consumption of activated physical entities such as, e.g., switches, routers, control elements, line cards, or whatever types of devices used therein. There is a high motivation to reduce such costs and save energy while maintaining operation and service of the network.
• a straight forward, but not very efficient method for reduc ⁇ ing power consumption and energy saving in a network is shown in the following example: Assume, a distinct number of line interfaces is connected to each line interface card (also re ⁇ ferred to as "line card” or "slot card") of a router. Shut- ting down unused line interfaces at a network node may save some energy. However, all line cards will still be active and consume a significant amount of power, if the unused line in ⁇ terfaces are distributed over several line cards. Moreover, a route processor may be deployed directly on each line card together with other electrical equipment like, e.g., power and clock supply equipment, which could be needed for operat ⁇ ing the different interfaces of the line card.
• the power saving potential is explained by a typical network traffic profile over a time period of 24 hours, which comes close to a sinusoidal pattern with the upper peak (representing the maximum traffic load) set to 100% and the lower peak (representing the minimum traffic load) resulting to about 40%.
• powering of individual links or interfaces is not very efficient and the opportunity of having a full network node, e.g., a 20-slot switch, in a condition for powering off may be rather limited.
• US 2010/0274943 Al discloses a power management apparatus configured to track an activity of each port in a line card and means to activate and deactivate the line card depending on the activity detected on its ports. More specifically, a line card can be deactivated, if all of its ports are out of traffic. Such coincidence, however, is rather rare.
• the problem to be solved is to improve known solutions to al ⁇ low for a more efficient power saving mechanism.
• entering the power save mode may comprise at least partially switching off or at least partially deacti ⁇ vating the component.
• entering the power save mode may comprise at least partially switching off or at least partially deacti ⁇ vating the component.
• the solution presented thus increases the probability that the component, e.g., a line card, an interface (module) and/or a network element can be disabled (also referred to as “deactivated”) and thus increases the likelihood of power saving throughout the network operation.
• the component e.g., a line card, an interface (module) and/or a network element can be disabled (also referred to as “deactivated") and thus increases the likelihood of power saving throughout the network operation.
• the decision criterion can be any criterion based on an energy consuming parameter, in particu lar a criterion based on which an energy consumption or a po tential means for energy saving can be derived.
• the component of the communication network comprises at least one of the following: - a network element;
• the interface can also be referred to as port.
• sev ⁇ eral interfaces (or ports) can be deployed on an interface module, which may also be regarded as a component of the com ⁇ munication network.
• the component may comprise at least one level of sub-components and the component enters the power save mode in case the sub-components entered the power save mode. It is noted that the component may in particular enter the power save mode in case all of its sub-components are about to enter or have already entered the power save mode.
• a network element can be switched off in case its line cards have been switched off.
• a line card can be switched off in case its interface modules have been switched off. Accordingly, the network element can be
• switching off also refers to entering the power save mode, i.e. one solution to enter the power save mode is to switch off the component. Switching off, however, can but does not have to imply that the compo ⁇ nent is completely switched off.
• residual traffic is at least par ⁇ tially rearranged from at least some ports of the component in case the decision criterion is met, in particular in case such residual traffic reaches or is less than a predetermined threshold.
• traffic from the component may be shifted to another component (wherein said components may be provided in a re ⁇ dundant manner) in order to avoid an interruption of traffic.
• the component enters its power save mode without having the traffic rearranged before:
• the traffic may experience a short interruption or means of the network or the component (such as bundled links) avoid any significant interruption of the traffic.
• Signifi- cant interruption can be a disruption of the service perceivable by the user; such significance may depend on the type of service: For example, transmission of video data may require a high quality of service without perceivable interruptions, whereas common Internet traffic may allow for minor delays without being noticed.
• Such rearrangement of traffic can be achieved via, e.g., in ⁇ terface placement and/or port assignment. Such rearrangement can be conducted such that primary or preferred paths share first set of line cards and secondary or alternative paths share a second set of line cards. Such rearrangement can in particular be provided in a way that links sharing similar traffic profiles share the same line cards.
• the decision criterion is provided by a central entity.
• an operation and maintenance entity may provide the decision criterion for the component to enter the power save mode. It is also an option that an energy supplier informs a network operator to save energy and the operator then initiates at least some of its components to enter the power save mode. As a particular option, the energy supplier and the operator of the network may be the same, thus power sav ⁇ ing mechanisms can be coordinated with, e.g., existing or ex ⁇ pected network traffic.
• residual traffic is at least partially rearranged from at least some ports of the compo ⁇ nent in particular based on the decision criterion.
• the decision criterion provided by the central entity can be used to control entering the power save mode.
• This can in particu ⁇ lar be done by instructing the component (or a portion thereof) to initiate the power save mode.
• the component may thus start rearranging its traffic (or a portion thereof) such that it can enter the power save mode.
• a separate instance, or even the operation and maintenance entity itself is responsible for managing the traffic in the network or the considered compo ⁇ nent.
• the operation and maintanence entity may instruct the instance responsible for traffic management, or take own actions, for appropriate rearrangement of traffic.
• the power save mode can be entered even in case not all residual traffic is rearranged. Some traffic may be dropped. It is also an option to rearrange the traffic ac- cording to a priority of the (type of) traffic based on, e.g., a quality-of-service criterion.
• the component is connected to at least one other component of the communication network in a redundant manner, in particular via separate physical or virtual links.
• Said link may be an end-to-end connection or a connection at least one intermediate component of the network (also ferred to as a multi-hop connection across the network) .
• the network may in particular be a partially meshed or a fully meshed network.
• Each component of the network in particular each node of the network or network element may be reached from each other node via at least two paths. This al ⁇ lows a high degree of flexibility when configuring the net ⁇ work and/or arranging or rearranging traffic, e.g. by using different line cards of a network element to reach a particu ⁇ lar other network element (or line card of this other network element) .
• a network element may comprise several line cards, each comprising several ports. This network element may reach several other network components by connecting each of its line cards to the several other network components. This way, operating a single line card is sufficient for this network element to reach the several other network components.
• one line card can enter the power save mode and the network element still is fully operational via its remaining active line card(s) .
• rearranging re ⁇ sidual traffic may comprise identifying a potential candidate to enter the power save mode (e.g.
• the power save mode can be en ⁇ tered after a full or a partial rearrangement of the residual traffic .
• the component is connected the at least one other component via a bundled link.
• the bundled link may comprise at least two physical end-to- end connections between the two components, wherein the at least two physical connections may be used for traffic and/or load sharing, and physical redundancy is exploited in a way that if a first link is deactivated or fails, a second link takes over the traffic of the first link. Accordingly, a set of second links can take over the traffic of the first link if there are more than two links in a bundled link.
• the respective links of a bundled link can be used as singl links. They may be used one after the other with traffic in creasing and they may become unused accordingly if the traf fic volume decreases.
• Traffic can be re-routed or rearranged pursuant to this prioritization.
• Link bundling mechanisms can be used, e.g., links of the same bundle can be spread over different line cards and/or links of different bundles can share at least one common line card.
• the criterion in particular comprises : - an energy saving criterion
• Static data may be used to manually trigger, schedule and en ⁇ force certain power saving actions. It may, however, also include information regarding, e.g., expected exceptional power or load situations, for example a forthcoming public or sports event such as e.g. a presidential speech or a football match, which indicates that a power saving mode is highly unlikely or undesireable . In such case, the power saving mode can be suspended for the duration of such event.
• expected exceptional power or load situations for example a forthcoming public or sports event such as e.g. a presidential speech or a football match, which indicates that a power saving mode is highly unlikely or undesireable .
• the power saving mode can be suspended for the duration of such event.
• a device of a com- munication network comprising or being associated with a processing unit that is arranged
• said device may be e.g. a central entity of the network, in particular an operation and maintenance entity, a network element or a line card.
• the component of the communication network can be a subordinate entity to the device.
• the component can be a node (or network element) , a line card, an interface module or an interface.
• the com ⁇ ponent can be a line card, an interface module or an inter ⁇ face.
• the component can be an interface module or an interface and if the device is an in ⁇ terface module the device can be an interface.
• a component of a communication network comprising a processing unit that is arranged
• the device can be the component being able to monitor the decision criterion and act, e.g., autonomously based on the decision criterion.
• processing unit can comprise at least one, in particular several means that are arranged to execute the steps of the method described herein.
• the means may be logically or physically separated; in particular sev ⁇ eral logically separate means could be combined in at least one physical unit.
• Said processing unit may comprise at least one of the follow ⁇ ing: a processor, a microcontroller, a hard-wired circuit, an ASIC, an FPGA, a logic device.
• the component of the communica ⁇ tion network comprises at least one of the following:
• a communi ⁇ cation system comprising at least one device as described herein .
• the solution provided herein further comprises a computer program product directly loadable into a memory of a digital computer, comprising software code portions for performing the steps of the method as described herein.
• a com ⁇ puter-readable medium e.g., storage of any kind, having com ⁇ puter-executable instructions adapted to cause a computer system to perform the method as described herein.
• Embodiments of the invention are shown and illustrated in the following figures: shows network elements with two line cards, each line card comprising two interfaces, wherein power saving can be applied in case a predetermined criterion is fulfilled, e.g., a traffic falls below a given threshold; shows an exemplary block diagram with steps for reducing the power consumption in a network; shows a schematic architecture of a communication network comprising network elements and a central entity, illustrating redundant connections across the network .
• the solution presented suggests, e.g., network design strate gies and rules, in particular interface placement and utili ⁇ zation, port assignment and traffic placement rules and re- lated mechanisms to at least increase the probability to en ⁇ able a network to temporarily free or clear at least one component, e.g., line card within a network element (also re ⁇ ferred to as network node) or even the complete network ele- ment from traffic, e.g., in times of certain network load distributions, situations or in times of low network load.
• the network element or a portion thereof, e.g., the at least one line card freed of traffic can be switched off (i.e. entering a power save mode) thereby reducing the power consumption of the network element.
• switching off refers to entering a low power mode or a power save mode of the component.
• the power save mode refers to a complete or partial deactivation of the component (e.g., line card, interface or network element) .
• Interface placement and/or port assignment can be conducted such that primary or preferred paths share a first set of line cards and secondary or alternative paths share a second set of line cards.
• Such interface placement and/or port assignment can in par ⁇ ticular be provided in a way that links sharing similar traf ⁇ fic profiles share the same line cards.
• Link bundling mechanisms can be used, e.g., links of the same bundle can be spread over different line cards and/or links of different bundles can share at least one common line card.
• traffic can be rearranged away from ports and/or nodes that are planned to be deactivated preferably before an actual switch-off in order to prevent an interruption of traffic or a deterioration of service quality due to potentially slow recovery mechanisms in the networks.
• Conventional routing protocols e.g., in IP routed networks like the Internet, may result in convergence times of seconds up to minutes in case of an unprepared switch-off or outage of a link or node.
• Traffic load thresholds or certain time windows of low traf ⁇ fic that are associated with traffic profiles can be used as decision criteria whether or not to re-arrange, re-route the residual traffic and/or to switch off the component (inter ⁇ face, line card and/or network element) .
• Bundled links e.g., link aggregation groups (LAG) in
• Ethernet networks may not need such precautions as the bun- dling technologies include mechanisms for fast automatic re ⁇ direction of traffic to remaining active links.
• a line card can be deactivated (enter a power saving mode) if all related ports have either been cleared of traffic (e.g. in case of no bundles being used for traffic) or fulfill any other criterion for deactivation (in case of bundled links) .
• deactivation in case of bundled links
• a mix of individual links and bundled links on the same line card is possible.
• Traffic load thresholds for enabling deactivation of a (further) link of a link bundle of homogeneous bandwidth may de- pend on the size of the (currently activated) bundle.
• Exem ⁇ plary load thresholds (for about 80% target load on the re ⁇ maining links of the bundle) may be:
• Target and threshold criteria may comprise or consider the resulting load on the remaining links of the bundle, which leaves suf ⁇ ficient margin to ensure the required QoS for all active ser ⁇ vices.
• Fig.2 shows an exemplary block diagram with steps for reducing the power consumption in a network.
• a component e.g., a network ele ⁇ ment, a line card or an interface module
• a decision criterion is fulfilled as indicated in a step 201, e.g., a threshold for a traffic monitored at the port(s) is reached, a power save mode can be entered in a step 202.
• an intermediate step 204 can be used to rear ⁇ range at least a portion of the traffic before entering the power save mode in the step 202. If the decision criterion is not fulfilled, the monitoring of the at least one port may be continued .
• step 201 can be fulfilled independently from the step 203.
• a central entity e.g., an operation and maintenance en ⁇ tity of the network can indicate that a decision criterion is fulfilled and that the power save mode shall be entered (di ⁇ rectly or via said step 204) .
• Fig.3 shows a schematic architecture of a communication net ⁇ work comprising network elements 301 to 305 and a central en- tity 306, e.g., an operation and maintenance center.
• the central entity 306 may provide control information via a control or signaling connection 307 to the network element 301.
• the network element 301 is connected to the network element 305 via a path comprising the connections 308 to 311 across the network ele ⁇ ments 302 to 304.
• a direct (end-to-end) connection 312, e.g., a bundled link or a normal connection exists between the network element 301 and the network element 305.
• connection 312 is a bundled link
• some links of the bundled link may enter the power save mode and the remaining link(s) sustain the connection between the network elements 301 and 305.
• each of the network elements 301 to 305 and the central entity 306 may comprise a processing unit for conducting steps of the methods described herein.
• the solution presented in particular allows aggregating all line interfaces that will be switched off such that whole line cards can be switched off. This is beneficial, for exam' pie, during time periods when power can be saved (e.g., low or no traffic situations) .
• a port assignment can be conducted in order to enable or disable at least one line card.
• the objective of power- efficient operation can be achieved via the following steps:
• an interface (or in ⁇ terface module) can be activated or deactivated:
• traffic may be enabled or disabled for each link of the bundled links.
• traffic can be reassigned to (other) interface modules and/or line cards .
• Step (1) Interface placement / port assignment
• the in ⁇ terfaces are connected to the incoming and outgoing cables, e.g., fibers .
• the in ⁇ terfaces also referred to as ports, wherein an inter ⁇ face module may comprise several ports
• the in ⁇ terfaces can be connected such that either least loaded interfaces or interfaces where the traffic strongly varies over time are con ⁇ nected to the same line card.
• Such an assignment bears the advantages of grouping those interfaces that have a high (e.g., the highest) probability not to be fully ex ⁇ ploited all the time.
• interfaces connecting the network element with one other network element can be configured as a "bun ⁇ dled link".
• a concept advantageously used in combination with and ena ⁇ bling specific embodiments is that of link bundling and/or link groups.
• IMA Inverse Multiplexing of ATM
• ITU-T and IETF have provided a concept of link groups re- ferred to as "composite link".
• a definition can be found in section 4.1.1 of the IETF draft document "Framework and Require- ments for MPLS Over Composite Link; draft-so-yong-mpls-ctg- framework-requirement-02 " , dated July 9, 2009 (see page 7) stating: "Each component link in a composite link is sup ⁇ ported by a separate server layer trail.
• a component link can be implemented by different transport technologies such as wavelength, SONET/SDH, OTN, Ethernet PHY, Ethernet VLAN, or can be a logical link [LSP Hierarchy] for example, MPLS, or MPLS-TP.
• Composite links of the approach described herein may be of identical type and speed, but could also be of different type and speed.
• characteristics e.g., bandwidth, la ⁇ tency
• characteristics of the component links may differ.
• Ethernet link aggregation (often referred to using the abbreviation LAG) as standardized in IEEE 802.1AX.
• LAG Ethernet link aggregation
• a multiplicity of different embodiments and implementations are available from different vendors and organizations under dif ⁇ ferent names and abbreviations.
• Step (2) Activation and deactivation of line cards
• step (2) can be applied as follows: For the network element at least one threshold for traffic regarding a bundled link is set. As soon as the traffic falls below this threshold, one of the interfaces of the bundled link can be deactivated. The interface to be deactivated can be chosen such that the probability that a whole line card can be deactivated is maximized. As soon as this threshold (or a different one, if some hysteresis is built in) is reached again, the interface can be re-activated. If all the interfaces of a line card are deactivated, the whole line card can be deactivated.
• step (2) can be applied as follows:
• the fol ⁇ lowing may apply: If the interfaces handle directly LSPs, e.g. OCh, MPLS or Carrier Ethernet interfaces, the LSPs can first be moved from the interfaces to be deactivated to at least one other interface. If the interfaces cannot directly handle LSPs (in case the interfaces are, e.g., pure IP or pure Ethernet interfaces) , this additional step is not re ⁇ quired. After the optional switch of the LSPs the interfaces can be deactivated. Everything else applies as described above.
• LSPs e.g. OCh, MPLS or Carrier Ethernet interfaces
• Fig.l shows a network element 101 (also referred to as node) with two line cards 102, 103, each line card comprising two interfaces, i.e. the line card 102 comprising interfaces 104, 105 and the line card 103 comprising interfaces 106, 107.
• Each interface can be referred to as port, wherein several interfaces can be combined into an interface module.
• the network element 101 is connected to a network element 108, i.e. the interface 104 is connected to an interface 110 of the network element 108. Further, the network element 101 is connected to a network element 109, i.e. the interface 105 is connected to an interface 111 of the network element 109. Also, the interface 106 is connected to an interface 112 of the network element 108 and the interface 107 is connected to an interface 113 of the network element 109.
• the interfaces 104 and 106 are connected to the net ⁇ work element 108 and the interfaces 105 and 107 are connected to the network element 109.
• the interfaces 104, 106 can be configured as bundled links and the interfaces 105, 107 can be configured as bundled links, too.
• Each of the interfaces 104 to 107 may have a bandwidth BW.
• a threshold value can be set to, e.g., 40% of the bandwidth BW.
• the inter ⁇ face 106 and the interface 107 can be deactivated.
• the line card 103 can be deactivated thereby saving a significant amount of power and thus reducing the operational costs (in this example during night time) .
• the threshold can be dynamically set. Also, a comparison with the threshold value can be conducted in an automated fashion thereby automatically switching off inter ⁇ faces and/or line cards or transferring (re-allocating) traf fic to other line cards or interfaces in order to free a par ticular line card or interface to be switched off.
• An exemplary router is deployed with two "14-Port 10GE
• LAN/WAN-PHY Interface Modules and two "Modular Services Cards” as line cards.
• Each line card occupies half a slot.
• the interface module consumes 150W and each line card con ⁇ sumes 446W.
• 50% of the node capacity can be switched off.
• it is suffi ⁇ cient that during such low traffic scenario, only one inter- face module is running. If the interfaces are assigned in a suitable way to a single interface module, a complete line card and one interface module can be switched off thereby al ⁇ lowing power saving amounting to 596W.
• the solution presented is applicable to various technologies and layers.
• the solution allows reducing energy consumption of network elements and thus reducing the costs for operating the network and its network elements.
• the solution can effi ⁇ ciently be utilized in existing networks.

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