Synchronizing Adaptive LPI Control Mechanism for Improving Energy Efficiency in Ethernet Switch

Ethernet is one of the most widely-deployed and utilized local-loop networking technology across the world, and IEEE 802.3az working group has confirmed EEE(Energy Efficient Ethernet) standard proposal based on LPI (Low Power Idle) mode. This paper suggests Synchronizing Adaptive LPI Control Mechanism in a bid to improve the energy efficiency between interfacing terminals on Ethernet network and the Ethernet switches. This mechanism determines ON and OFF durations of consecutive cycles based on the measured incoming traffic quantities from the terminals. It keeps transferring cycle information which is the most proximate to the traffic bursting cycles while resting in idle is left to LPI mode by conveying the corresponding information to the switch. This paper conducts the performance evaluations with simulations on Poisson distribution traffic and burst traffic. The result has shown that the suggested mechanism in this paper improves the overall performance by reducing the energy consumption rate compared to the existing mechanism, keeping the average packet delay to the similar state as before.