IEEE Seeks For Ethernet To 'Go Green'

alphadogg submitted a piece at the NetworkWorld site about the IEEE's efforts to introduce energy efficiency to Ethernet use. The group's Energy Efficient Ethernet group is looking into methods by which standards can be tweaked to encourage power savings. Current plans include ways to make computers 'choosier' about what level of bandwidth they're using. Idle systems would only run at 10Mbps, while email might draw 100Mbs, and scale up to 1000Mbps for large downloads and streaming video. The group is planning to discuss changes to the Ethernet link and higher layers. No restrictions are planned for device manufacturers, although the article suggests some companies might try to use energy efficiency as a competitive advantage. The EEE group estimates some $450 million a year could be saved via the use of energy efficient Ethernet technology.

Comments

But I like my Network Neutral

[Anonymous Coward]

And email getting 100 poops versus video getting 1000 poops is not neutral...

mod 30wn

[Anonymous Coward]

and what supplies Any doubt: FreeBSD As li7tle oVerhead be any fucking States that there

Windows Vista DRM Implementation Wastes Power

[Ron Bennett]

While on the topic of "going green", Windows Vista's DRM implementation, collectively, is likely going to waste more power...

Windows Vista requires much new hardware, drivers, etc for the strong DRM encryption, tilt bits, etc... nothing more than a power waster for the typical user; all that number crunching likely shortens hardware life too.

Has the IEEE examined the issue of DRM on power usage? ... if not, they should!

Ron

I'd rather that they got auto-negotiation working

[multiplexo]

than fuck around with this. Auto-negotiation still doesn't work properly, and I still see problems with it on good Sun gear connected to good Foundry Network switches, not just on cheap, consumer grade crap. I had enough problems with it screwing things up that I finally disabled it, well I didn't disable it. I just set all of my backup clients up so that they could auto-negotiate all they wanted to. Just so long as they autonegotiated GigE, full duplex.