SustNMS: Towards service oriented policy-based network management for energy-efficiency

Considering the increasing importance of carbon free networking solutions, several energy-efficient networking systems have been proposed and evaluated in literature. One significant challenge is how to encompass actions targeting energy savings and possible corresponding degradations in network QoS (Quality of Service). This paper presents an energy-efficient policy-based network management architecture that enables the enforcement of energy-efficiency according to high-level business decisions on how to coordinate the trade-off between energy savings and the potential impact on the network operation. The system integrates a real-time energy-efficiency assessment with a dynamic evaluation of network availability and performance. Its operation is presented and advantages are discussed.