A reliable analyzer for energy-saving approaches in Large Data Center Networks

Abstract

Nowadays a big effort has been paid to make energy-efficient Data Center Networks (DCNs). There are several proposed solutions to reduce the energy consumption in DCN. However, for researchers, it is difficult to evaluate the energy saving performance of those approaches in a large-size network due to the testbed/emulation environment limitation. In this paper we construct a Performance Evaluation Simulator (called GreenDC Analyzer) that can model a large DCN of thousands of servers. The tool is shown to have a reliability and flexibility in processing and providing accurate and stable performance evaluations with various switch types, and different energy-saving schemes under the same traffic conditions. The tool also allows us to have a deeper investigation of the energy saving performance for the two well-known energy-saving schemes: Power Scaling and Idle Logic. In the bottom line, the Analyzer could be a useful tool for researchers to study pros and cons of different energy-saving approaches in a data center.