Abstract

This paper proposes a methodology for resource"br/"consolidation towards minimizing the power consumption in a"br/"large network, with a substantial resource overprovisioning. The"br/"focus is on the operation of the core MPLS networks. The"br/"proposed approach is based on a software defined networking"br/"(SDN) scheme with a reconfigurable centralized controller, which"br/"turns off certain network elements. The methodology comprises"br/"the process of identifying time periods with lower traffic demand;"br/"the ranking of the network elements, based on their utilization"br/"and criticality; the rerouting of the traffic off the least utilized"br/"elements; and finally, the switching off of the appropriate nodes"br/"or links. An algorithm for traffic rerouting, based on the MPLS"br/"traffic engineering techniques is proposed and its performance is"br/"evaluated in terms of the achieved energy efficiency in"br/"accordance with predefined connectivity and quality of service"br/"constraints.