What do we need to do to “green” data-center networks? A fundamental perspective

While traditional information theory has driven the choice of communication strategies for most of today's communication systems, it focuses almost exclusively on minimizing the transmit power of the system. In modern short-distance applications, including high-speed data-center networks, the energy consumed in the circuitry to enable reliable between servers can dominate the transmit energy across the links. Recent theoretical results and empirical observations show that in such situations, operating close to the traditional information-theoretic limits can be highly inefficient from a system-level energy-perspective. In this position paper, we use these results to propose a way forward for obtaining energy-efficient strategies for future Ethernet, including the NGBASE Ethernet which is currently being standardized. We also introduce our Total Energy Minimization platform, TotEM, that will collect information to enable communication system designers to make the most energy-efficient choices.