Energy-Efficient Ethernet

[rpm]

Energy-Efficient Ethernet

Upcoming 802 standards will energise the development of energy-efficient Ethernet in the next year or two, according to global enterprise networking solutions provider 3Com.

 

[davemc]

Cool, so now what? Are they going to make a network card cost R3000 instead of R70?

I think they they're using "energy efficiency" in an effort to implement a means of identifying idle network points, which IS a good idea, no, it's an excellent idea, but much more complicated to explain why it's so good.

Think of it this way, if a network is "sleeping", well then it can be used to transfer some information, taking some of the load off the main pipeline. But, in order to know that something is sleeping, you have to have really simple measurement systems in place, but on a massive scale, something that is going to require an industry wide change in thinking.

Nobody in business wants to admit to having idle lines, so, this move will simply take it out of their hands.

Kekekekekeke.

 

[dj_jyno]

This is a very nice idea to get it ratified as a new standard, but the idea's been around for a while, albeit in a slightly different form - D-Link's Green Ethernet. This also shuts down unused ports on the switch, but instead of reducing power in idle mode, it reduces power depending on the length of cable from the switch to the device.

davemc, I'm sure the slightly higher initial investment for the equipment will pay off in the form of reduced energy consumption - both by the devices themselves and the cooling required to keep them at an acceptable temperature in, say, a server room.