Networks of Tiny Switches ( NoTS ): In search of network power efficiency and proportionality

1. Networks of Tiny Switches (NoTS): In search of network power efficiency and proportionality WEED 2013 June 24, 2013 Joseph Chabarek Sujata Banerjee (HP Labs) Puneet Sharma (HP Labs) JayaramMudigonda (HP Labs) Paul Barford

2. Motivation • 2% (estimate) of world carbon output • Increasing number of users and traffic is a long term characteristic of the Internet • Always-on-at-full power • Increasing pressure from consumers and regulators to be “green” • Public commitments from vendors [Smart2020] [SMART 2020] SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. http://www.smart2020.org/_assets/files02_Smart2020Report.pdf jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

3. Networks of Tiny Switches (NoTS) Devices have high static power consumption (60-80% max consumption at idle loads) Use low radix (port count), small form factor switches as a primitive to assemble low powered networks. Deploy power-proportional networks (i.e. small efficient switches can give finer granularity of control) jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

4. NoTS trends jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

5. NoTS tradeoffs • [Backplane:] NoTS devices have fewer communication channels (more external links) • [Processor:] lower power processors can be used in a NoTSdevice (more devices) • [Features:] There are feature-rich small switches in the market today • [Power Supply/Fans:] NoTS devices have simple a/c to d/c converters and typically do not have fans • [Fixed vs Chassis:] NoTSdevices would be built as single chip fixed switches. jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

6. NoTS evaluation • Enterprise transformation • Datacenter evaluation • Network simulation capability for large networks jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

7. Enterprise transformation • Observed traffic from a large IT company • Topology standard core/distribution/access • Access through core, traffic primarily North-South jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

8. Device models jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

9. Example enterprise NoTS construction Existing infrastructure: 600 provisioned hosts 218 total host ports active 355 total ports administratively up Allocated: Deploy NoTS for 600 hosts, power infrastructure for 218 up ports Packing: Pack 355 up ports onto the fewest devices and power infrastructure Realized: Power down unused linecards NoTS vs. deployed devices shows uniform decrease in consumption jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

10. Datacenter topologies • Are there any good low radix datacenter topologies that scale? • What are the performance and power tradeoffs? • Static and simulator evaluation (1800 hosts) NoTS topologies (radix < 20): Torus, B-Cube, RRG9 Standard topologies: Fat-tree, RRG48 jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

11. Topology performance characteristics NoTS topologies incur a longer average path length with randomized host placement Multihomed topologies fare better against node failures jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

12. Topology performance characteristics jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

13. Dynamic power consumption simulation Simulated result of NoTS realized power savings Result more dramatic with measurement based chassis and per-link costs jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

14. NoTS contributions • Proposed a novel power-aware network architecture primitive • NoTS network transformations for enterprise and datacenter contexts • Evaluated power, performance tradeoffs of existing and proposed network architectures jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

15. Related work • Trends and system design • Energy conservation in networks [GS03] • Alternative systems [MCK03] • Helios[FAR10] • Access networks[GOM11] • Tools and testbeds • Optimization • Network simulation and emulation • [GS03] M. Gupta and S. Singh. Greening of the Internet. In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM ’03 • [MCK03] N. McKeown, “Scaling Routers Using Optics ,http://yuba.stanford.edu/~nickm/talks, October 2003. • [FAR10] Farrington et al. Helios: A Hybrid Electrical/Optical Switch Arch. For Modular Data Centers. In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM ’10 • [GOM11]Goma et al. Insomnia in the Access . In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM ’11 jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

16. Related work • Power-aware networks • Energy related metrics[AA10] • Adaptive bandwidth [EEE] • Datacenters[BH10] • Best practices [HP10] • Related Systems • Wireless • PC’s [BH10] B. Heller, S. Seetharaman, P. Mahadevan,Y. Yiakoumis, P. Sharma, S. Banerjee, and N. McKeown. ElasticTree: Saving Energy in Data Center Networks. NSDI ’10. [AA10]A.P. Bianzino, A.K. Raju, and D. Rossi. Apple-to-Apple: A Framework Analysis for Energy-Efficiency in Networks. In Proceedings of GREENMETRICS, New York, NY, May 2010. [EEE] Energy Efficient Digital Networks. http://efficientnetworks.lbl.gov/enet-adaptive.html, 2010 [HP10]P. Mahadevan, P. Sharma, S. Banerjee, and P. Ranganathan. Energy Aware Network Operations. In IFIP Networking, May 2009 jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

17. Future work • Simulation/emulation of more topologies under individually adverse traffic patterns • Explore novel network device architectures and packages • Evaluate the role of optical interconnects jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

18. Questions? jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

19. NoTS trends jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu

20. NoTS trends jpchaba@cs.wisc.edu