Green networking aims to reduce the carbon footprint of information and communication technology (ICT) networks by improving energy efficiency. Key strategies include optimizing network infrastructure utilization through technologies like virtualization, improving equipment energy efficiency, and locating network resources closer to renewable energy sources. Measurement of energy savings is important to track progress towards a lower carbon "Green Network".

3.  A network is a series
of points or nodes
interconnected by
communication
paths.
 Networking is the
construction, design,
and use of a network.

5.  A new study reveals that the information,
communication and technology (ICT) industry
contributes to about 2 percent of global carbon
dioxide emissions, the same amount that the
aviation industry produces.
 Researchers from the Centre for Energy-Efficient
Telecommunications (CEET) and Bell Labs have
estimated that the ICT industry, which
comprises Internet and cloud services,
discharges more than 830 million tons of carbon
dioxide every year.

6.  Carbon dioxide is one of the primary greenhouse
gases that is responsible for the increase in
global temperatures. CO2 is naturally present in
the Earth's atmosphere, but the emission levels
of the gas have significantly increased due to
human activities.
 Researchers involved in the new study have
projected that the emission of carbon by the ICT
sector is likely to double by the year 2020.

7. 820m tons CO2
360m tons CO2
260m tons CO2
2007Worldwide ICT
carbon footprint:
2% = 830 m tons CO2
Comparable to the
global aviation
industry
Expected to grow
to 4% by 2020
The Climate Group, GeSI
Report “Smart 2020”, 2008

8.  Consciousness of environmental problems tied to
Greenhouse Gases (GHG) has increased in recent
years.
 All around the world, various studies started
highlighting the devastating effects of massive GHG
emissions and their consequences on climate change.
 According to a report published by the European
Union, a decrease in emission volume of 15%–30% is
required before year 2020 to keep the global
temperature increase below 2 ◦C.

9.  GHG effects are not limited to the environment,
though.
 Their influence on the economy have also been
investigated and their financial damage has been put
in perspective with the potential economical saving
that would follow GHG reduction.
 In particular, projected that a 1/3 reduction of the GHG
emissions may generate an economical saving higher
than the investment required to reach this goal.

10.  GHG reduction objectives involve many
industry branches, including the Information
and CommunicationTechnology (ICT) sector,
especially considering the penetration of
these technologies in everyday life.
 Indeed , the volume of CO2 emissions
produced by the ICT sector alone has been
estimated to be approximately 2 % of the
total man-made emissions.

11.  Energy becomes more expensive.
 People become more conscious of the
negative effects of energy consumption on
the environment.
 Reduction of unnecessary energy
consumption is becoming a major concern
because of the potential economical benefits
and of its expected environmental impact.

12.  Large-scale ICT infrastructures expanded rapidly and their
energy consumption grew drastically these last few years.
 As networks and data centers are generally prepared to
face high load conditions, these infrastructures are under-
utilized most of the time.
 Network equipments, in particular, could be switched off
when the load is low and switched on again when traffic
increases, or when a failure happens, requiring redundant
equipments to take the duty.
 There is, there, a clear direction to save energy.

13.  Data-centers and networking infrastructure involve
high-performance and high-availability machines.They
therefore rely on powerful devices, which require
energy-consuming air conditioning to sustain their
operation, and which are organized in a redundant
architecture.
 As these architectures are often designed to endure
peak load and degraded conditions, they are
underutilized in normal operation, leaving a large room
for energy savings.

14.  Select energy-efficient technologies and
products.
 Minimize resource use whenever possible.
 In recent years, valuable efforts have indeed
been dedicated to reducing unnecessary
energy expenditure which is called greening.

15.  Green is a simple approach of trying to live in
harmony with nature, whether in small increments,
or from the ground up, in terms of our living and
working environment.
• G - Generate less waste
• R - Recycle everything that cannot be reused
• E - Educate the community on eco-friendly options
• E - Evaluate the environmental impact of actions
• N- Nourish discussions and activities that integrate
environmental education into existing curriculum

16.  Greening of the networking technologies and
protocols.
 Optimize networking or make it more efficient,
reduce energy consumption, conserve
bandwidth.
 Embedding energy-awareness in the design, in
the devices and in the protocols of networks.
 Any process that will ultimately reduce energy
use and, indirectly, cost.

17.  Implementing virtualization.
 Practicing server consolidation.
 Upgrading older equipment for newer, more
energy-efficient products.
 Employing systems management to increase
efficiency.
 Substituting telecommuting, remote
administration and videoconferencing for
travel.

18.  Green networking is an initiative begun by many
telecommunication companies to reduce the
carbon dioxide emissions from base stations.
 Base station emissions are expected to peak at
22 megatons this year and with green initiatives
drop 30% to 15.6 megatons by 2014.
 If these measures are not instituted carbon
emissions are expected to rise to 35 megatons in
5 years.

19.  The objective of green networking is to aim at
the minimization of the GHG emissions.
 An obvious first step in this direction is to
enforce as much as possible the use of
renewable energy in ICT.
 Yet another natural track is to design low power
components, able to offer the same level of
performance.

20.  However, these are not the only leads: redesigning the
network architecture itself, for instance by de-locating
network equipment towards strategic places, may yield
substantial savings too for two main reasons.
 The first reason is related to the losses that appear when
energy is transported: the closer the consumption points
are to the production points, the lower this loss will be.
 The second reason is related to the cooling of electronic
devices: air-cooling represents an important share of the
energy expenditure in data centers and cold climates may
lessen this dependency.

21.  Google displaced their server farms to the banks
of the Columbia River to take advantage of the
energy offered by the hydroelectric power plants
nearby.
 The water flow provided by the river may in
addition be used within the cooling systems, as
experimented by Google, even though this may
lead to other environmental issues such as
seaweed proliferation if the water temperature
increases too much.

22.  An alternative cooling system, investigated by
Microsoft in the InTent and Marlow projects
consists in leaving servers in the open air so that
heating dissipates more easily.
 Canada advanced research and innovation
network (CANARIE) is strongly pushing in this
direction, especially using virtualization to ease
service geographical delocalization driven by the
energy source availability.

23. Green networking may be better seen as
“ a way to reduce energy required to
carry out a given task while maintaining the
same level of performance ”.

24.  Green Networking covers all aspects of the network (personal
computers, peripherals, switches, routers, and communication
media).
 Energy efficiencies of all network components must be optimized
to have a significant impact on the overall energy consumption by
these components.
 Consequently, these efficiencies gained by having a Green
Network will reduce CO2 emissions and thus will help mitigate
global warming.
 New ICT technologies must be explored and the benefits of these
technologies must be assessed in terms of energy efficiencies and
their associated benefits in minimizing the environmental impact
of ICT.

25.  Reduction of energy consumption.
 Improvement of energy efficiency.
 Consideration of the environmental impact of network components from
design to end of use.
 Integration of network infrastructure and network services; this
integration consolidates traditional different networks into one network.
 Making the network more intelligent; the intelligent network will be
more responsive, requiring less power to operate.
 Compliance with regulatory reporting requirements.
 Promotion of a cultural shift in thinking about how we can reduce carbon
emissions.

26. Desktop computers and monitors consume 39% of all electrical power used in
ICT. In 2002, this equated to 220 Mt (millions tons of CO2 emission).

27.  Old Cathode RayTube monitors should be replaced with
Liquid Crystal Display screens which reduce monitor
energy consumption by as much as 80%.
 Replacing all desktop PCs with laptops would achieve a
90% decrease in power consumption.
 Energy can also be saved by using power saving software
installed on desktops and running all the time.The power
saving software controls force PCs to go into standby
when not in use.
 Another option is to use solid state hard drives that use
50% less power than mechanical hard drives.

28.  Modern network switches perform various network
infrastructure tasks and as a result use considerable
power.
 PoE (Power over Ethernet) is a relative new technology
introduced into modern network switches. PoE switch
ports provide power for network devices as well as
transmit data.
 PoE switch ports are used by IP phones, wireless LAN
access points, and other network attached equipment.
PoE switch port can provide power to a connected device
and can scale back power when not required.

29.  One solution is to use a highly efficient power
supply within the network switch. By using a
highly efficient power supply we can save up to
800W.
 Another solution is to use power management
software built into the network switch.With
power management software, we can instruct
the network switch to turn off ports when not in
use.

30.  The main issue with Data Centers, with respect to Green
Networking, is their inefficient use of electrical power by the Data
Center components. In addition, electrical power generation from
coal becomes a critical issue.
 Data centers store a vast amount of data used on a daily basis by
users, companies, government, and academia. As the demand for
data has increased so has the size of Data Centers.
 Consequently, the power consumed has also increased. In 2003, a
typical Data Center consumed about 40Watts per square foot
energy, and in 2005 this figure has been raised to 120 Watts/sq ft
energy and it is anticipated that this figure will continue to rise.

32.  Due to the high power consumption by Data Centers, there are
some proposed solutions to save energy and make Data Centers
more energy efficient. Some of the solutions include :
 Taking the Data Center to the power source instead of taking the
power source to the DataCenter
 Consolidation and virtualization
 Improved server and storage performances, power management
 High efficiency power supplies
 Improved data center design.

33.  Traditionally the electrical power needed for Data Centers
is supplied by the electricity grid. Using alternate energy
sources at the Data Center is often impractical.
 The solution is to take the Data Center to the energy
source.The energy source could be solar, wind,
geothermal, or some combination of these alternate
forms of energy.
 Instead of the power traveling great distances, the data
would need to travel great distances. For this to be
feasible, we would require a broadband network
infrastructure.

34.  The vision of a Green Network is one where we can all have
thin clients using low energy consumption, connected via
wireless to the Internet, where all our data is securely stored
in highly efficient, reliable Data Centers typically running
at low energy per Gigabit per second speed.This can also include
access to network services from Cloud computing service
providers.
 Whatever the future is, Green Networking will help reduce the
carbon footprint of the ICT industry and hopefully lead the way in
a cultural shift that all of us need to make if we are to reverse the
global warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.
 Finally, the issue of Efficiency versus Consumption is an interesting
argument, that is, efficiency drives consumption. ICT solutions can
solve efficiency; it is society that must solve consumption.

35.  To enable a “Green Network”, we must be able to monitor and
measure the savings associated with our green networking
strategies in place.
 A network energy efficiency baseline must be established from
which we can measure improvements and compare them with the
baseline.
 We must look at ways to develop meaningful measurements to
measure such power savings.
 In a low carbon “Green Networking” environment, instead of
considering bits per second (bps) we might need to consider
watts/bit to measure energy inefficiencies or perhaps a better
indicator would be bits per CO2 (b/co2).