| KEYWORD |
Multi-stage Green Software Routers
keywords POWER, SOFTWARE ROUTER
Reference persons ANDREA BIANCO
External reference persons Robert Birke
Research Groups Telecommunication Networks Group
Thesis type DEVELOPMENT, EXPERIMENTAL
Description Software routers based on Personal Computer architectures are becoming an important alternative to proprietary and expensive network devices. However, software routers suffer from limitations of the PC architectures such as reduced number of avaialble interfaces, limited performance, etc. To overcome these drawbacks, multi-stage architectures based on interconnection of PCs (also named internal router element) can be an interesting alternative since they allow to i) increase the performance of single-software routers, ii) scale router size, iii) distribute packet-forwarding and control functionalities, iv) recover from single-component failures, and v) incrementally upgrade router performance.
In our lab located at ISMB (Istituto Superiore Mario Boella) a prototype multi-stage interconnected architecture is up and running. To make the inteconnected architecture operate as a single router, a newly developed control protocol named DIST provides the fundamental control functions like routing table distribution and automatic node reconfiguration.
On the other side, there is an increased awareness on the importance of the network device energy consumption. Indeed, Telecom Italia is the second largest energy consumer in Italy after Trenitalia.
The main objective of the thesis is to enhance the existing DIST control protocol introducing energy saving features which allow to switch on/off elements of the multi-stage router based on the traffic load. The main idea is to use the Wake-On-Lan technology combined with traffic prediction and/or on-line measurements to decide when and which internal router element switch on/off to save energy.
Required skills Good knowledge of networking protocols, good knowledge of C/C++ programming and basic knowledge of Linux-based systems.
Deadline 02/11/2013
PROPONI LA TUA CANDIDATURA