networks of tiny switches ( nots ): in search of network power efficiency and proportionality

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

Joseph ChabarekSujata Banerjee (HP Labs)Puneet Sharma (HP Labs)

Jayaram Mudigonda (HP Labs)Paul Barford

WEED 2013June 24, 2013

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]

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[SMART 2020] SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. http://www.smart2020.org/_assets/files02_Smart2020Report.pdf

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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)

NoTS trends

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NoTS tradeoffs

• [Backplane:] NoTS devices have fewer communication channels (more external links)

• [Processor:] lower power processors can be used in a NoTS device (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:] NoTS devices would be built as single chip fixed switches.

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NoTS evaluation

• Enterprise transformation• Datacenter evaluation• Network simulation capability for large

networks

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Enterprise transformation

• Observed traffic from a large IT company• Topology standard core/distribution/access• Access through core, traffic primarily North-

South

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Enterprise Network

Down links

...

...Up links

...

...

...

Enterprise Network

Large Switch

... ......Tiny Switch

...

Tiny Switch

...

Tiny Switch

...

Tiny Switch

...

Large SwitchLarge Switch

Device models

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Example enterprise NoTS construction

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Existing infrastructure:600 provisioned hosts218 total host ports active355 total ports administratively upAllocated: 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

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)

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NoTS topologies (radix < 20): Torus, B-Cube, RRG9Standard topologies: Fat-tree, RRG48

Topology performance characteristics

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NoTS topologies incur a longer average path length with randomized host placement

Multihomed topologies fare better against node failures

Topology performance characteristics

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Tolopogy Normalized bisection bandwidth

Torus 0.19

BCube 1.14

FatTree 1,2 1.0

RRG9 0.32

RRG42 0.87

Dynamic power consumption simulation

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Simulated result of NoTS realized power savings

Result more dramatic with measurement based chassis and per-link costs

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

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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

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[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

Related work

• Power-aware networks– Energy related

metrics[AA10]

– Adaptive bandwidth [EEE]

– Datacenters[BH10]

– Best practices [HP10]

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[BH10] B. Heller, S. Seetharaman, P. Mahadevan,Y. Yiakoumis, P. Sharma, S. Banerjee, andN. 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 forEnergy-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

• Related Systems– Wireless– PC’s

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

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Questions?

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NoTS trends

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NoTS trends

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