An energy consumption model for Energy Efficient Ethernet switches

Ethernet is one of the first computer networking technologies for which a standard has been developed to improve its energy efficiency. The Energy Efficient Ethernet (IEEE 802.3az) standard was approved in 2010 and is expected to enable savings of several Terawatt hours (TWh) per year. As switches that implement the standard become available and are deployed, it is important to understand how their energy consumption depends on the number of active ports and their traffic. In this paper the energy consumption of small Energy Efficient Ethernet switches is analyzed in several experiments and based on the results a model for the energy consumption of Energy Efficient Ethernet switches is proposed. The model can be used to predict the energy savings when deploying the new switches and also for research on further energy saving techniques such as energy efficient routing or dynamic link shutdown.