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Microsoft's Sleep Proxy Lowers PC Energy Use
alphadogg writes "Microsoft researchers have slashed desktop energy use with a sleep proxy system that maintains a PC's network presence even when it is turned off or put into standby mode. Microsoft has deployed the sleep proxy system to more than 50 active users in the Building 99 research facility in Redmond, Wash., according to the Microsoft Research Web site and a paper that will be presented at the Usenix technical conference in Boston later this month. ... Sleep proxies allow machines to be turned off while keeping them connected to the network, waking the machines when a user or IT administrator attempts to access them remotely."
Yay!! Microsoft!!
This is something new? Isn't this basically just wake on lan with an external box? Meaning that rather than having a part of the computer powered on in case the packet to wake up comes through, they're doing it with an external box. I'm a bit curious as to why this justifies any particular coverage.
Hmm, now who else has had such a system?
This sounds awfully familiar... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Proxy_Service
Reinventing something that's been available for years is not 'coming up with good technologies'.
Now what they SHOULD have done is just cache the MAC of the PC in AD along with the rest of the object (It might already be there as part of the auth stuff) and then mod the remote access client to try and ping first, no reply? Send a Wake on Lan packet.
nothing important here
My Macs have been able to do this for some time now, and not just in "small testbeds or simulations," so what's new? Oh, I know! Microsoft is going to take an existing technology, that works rather well in my experience, and they're going to turn it into a bloated software package that costs more than the hardware you run it on, but never actually works right without the use of additional third party hardware and software, and then it'll get praised by mindless Windows jockies claiming that Apple's version was "too simple" and only good for people who don't understand how to run Windows properly.
Wait... what?
I was expecting a sleep proxy for me so that I could stay up all night while the proxy wasted time sleeping.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
hey thats great.. Its as simple as modding every single remote access application that currently exists and will ever exist.. such as firefox.. thats so simple... you are brilliant.
"His name was James Damore."
Interesting. Could we have a link, please?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Swell, botnets can even operate with computers which had been turned off.
Someone already posted it up a few comments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Proxy_Service
Ok, not quite the 80's but haven't they heard of WOL or vPro? Since they were part of both you would think so...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It was patented by Apple 3 YEARS AGO. It has been in existence even longer. And yet, ppl like you claims that MS invented this (or a number of other things). That is the problem. MS invents little, steals a great deal yet, their minions beg the world (as cowards) to accept them as being honest inventors. MS is the China of the software world.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It can if your network team allows it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That's innovation!
waking the machines when a user or IT administrator attempts to access it remotely
Cue disaster, take 11.
Basically yet another device that uses energy, seeing as all newer pcs come with built-in wake on lan that cannort be disabled anymore. Just another gadget that uses energy, even if the computer is powered on ..
Although this needs some server software, it sounds like all the network connections stay alive while the PC client is (as near as dammit) powered off. That means no tedious having to restart all the IP connections, network shares and applications that would otherwise get disconnected or timed out. (It also means you keep the same IP address - guess?).
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No, it doesn't. It's possible to implement XMode's trick at the API level.
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Microsoft came up with this? You're one of those comedian ACs.
Wake On LAN
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3774
In fact, the entire Apple implementation is open source and part of mDNSResponder, the source is here.
Now if only someone would port it to avahi so we could get it on Ubuntu and Debian...
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Apple has had a sleep proxy built into their Airport devices since WWDC last year...
So every user has to install a driver? Even Joe Plumber trying to access your invoice history web server?
You just dont seem to get it.
"His name was James Damore."
Interesting. Could we have a link, please?
Yes, as soon as the machine wakes up.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I remember Linus telling in the kernel mailing list how he would like to see the power management stuff improving to the point a box would power off automatically after a certain time, put the network card into sleep, and use it as a sort of "wakeup device" when someone from internet tries to ping the box.
Do the majority of users in an enterprise environment even shut off their computers?
I know that where I work, probably 97% of the users lock their machine, not shut them off. It's kind of annoying...
wake on lan scares the shit out of me. that it'll be all networking devices is kinda scary. The thing we have to realise is that microsoft users are so used to having z3r0 security, that most won't ever talk to you if ever brought up this topic. They walk off whistling. Sad
Not quite the same:Wake on Demand lets Snow Leopard sleep with one eye open
http://www.macworld.com/article/142468/2009/08/wake_on_demand.html
You can do more than just wake up a system, you can maintain a proxy for all advertised services like file sharing and printing.
A lot of BIOSes have the capacity to set a time and date to turn off and on the computer.
In fact, the entire Apple implementation is open source and part of mDNSResponder, the source is here.
Now if only someone would port it to avahi so we could get it on Ubuntu and Debian...
now if only someone would port it to Windo... oh wait!
MAC stands for Media Access Control.
"Machine Address Code" my ass...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I use WOL extensively. There are so, so many people here saying that this is an improvement because WOL will just wake up the machine for a ping or some other stupid crap. Look, it doesn't work that way. WOL doesn't mean wake up whenever we see network activity. It means wake up if we receive a WOL request. Basically, you need to send a specifically crafted package directed to that specific MAC. That's usually all you'll ever need. On the other hand, Sleep Proxy Server has been around for quite some time ... and it's Free Software ... where's the improvement here?
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Ever heard of Windows Update? You are the on who doesn't seem to get it.
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Won't people have to update or install this "sleep proxy"?
While this & wake-on-LAN seem like novel ideas, I think it'd be better to focus on allowing smarter power management within the computer. For example, add-in 3D cards do not go to sleep when the monitor does, this consumes quite a bit of power. This is not as big of a problem in a business setting, but even onboard graphics are getting more advanced. CPUs can still improve as well. Better clock stepping, such as allowing the CPU to run @ 20% it's rated speed. CPU core power downs, where you shut off cores not in use & power-gating, so you're shutting off parts of active cores not in use. Once SSDs come in to use, they will also help as these can effectively be turned off when not in use as they have no spin-up time.
Ultimately, I think the goal should be better power scaling on-demand rather than completely shutting the computer off. Once the computer is off you have to get into funky schemes like this to get it back up and running. Even in sleep mode, the computer is still consuming 1W - 10W power. Imagine being able to let your computer just idle at 1W - 10W & then scale to 25W - 200W when you need to use it for work.
Evidently, it's already in the works.
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No. I think it's a WOL service that is invoked by a RDP proxy. You try to remote to your sleeping machine. A proxy machine hears the request, knows that the machine is asleep, and sends the WOL signal to it. There may potentially be a RDP session migration also. I want this for my WHS, so I can wake my sleeping desktop from work. Perhaps a mesh.live,com applet could do this.
So every user has to install a driver? Even Joe Plumber trying to access your invoice history web server?
You just dont seem to get it.
In a corporate environment, the driver would be pushed out through WSUS.
It's also OpenSource [...] Meaning if Linux or *BSD wanted to they too could also have it too.
They could, if it weren't patented.
If you read the fine article, you will see that they acknowledge wake on lan and other similar work. They are addressing a practical problem in large networks. Classic implementations of Wake-on-Lan wake the computer when another computer sends it a packet. This looks fine in theory, "my computer wakes up when it has something to do," but it does not work well in practice, in a large network.
In any network of a certain size, there is a lot of noise, scans, keep alive traffic. That traffic causes packets to be received frequently, maybe a couple times per minutes. When a computer awakes, it takes some time to put it back to sleep, maybe a minute. Given enough background traffic, the computer never goes to sleep.
The solution is some form of filter, to only wake up the computer if the incoming data packet is "important." For that, you need a proxy. And the proxy needs a lot of tuning. If it does not wake up on "important" traffic, the users are pissed. If it wakes up too often for trivial pings, the energy bill increases. What they claim here is that after a year of trial, they have validated a particular tuning that works well. Seems interesting indeed.
Can I say--big freaking deal? It's some sort of magic that lets me RDP into a machine and automatically WakeOnLAN if I understand TFA. Who cares? Any admin worth anything can already. And I'm sick of supporting RDP for offices too cheap to buy terminal services.
Let me know when I can use this tech to /MAINTAIN MY NETWORK APPS/ while the computer sleeps. You want to save money...
let me run bittorrent from a sleeping computer.
let my SSH sessions and VPN stay turned on while it's sleeping (they don't have to do much anyway other than play a wave if certain text comes across on watch)
let my IM and IRC programs run on a sleeping computer--turn up the socket timeouts or something, it's low bandwidth enough a burst every 5 minutes should do it.
In short--give it a real tcp/ip offload engine to the NIC (yes microsoft, REAL network hardware with real drivers...not your usual soft-emulation shit), and introduce a FAST, simple to use suspend/ultra low power mode that only hits disk once every ten minutes or at least really utilizes a disk cache. With modern SSDs/hybrid SSDs, a real low power mode should be an option
Also--get rid of those HORRIFIC polling apps that have a way of draining battery life in laptops while you're at it. I want a windows protection style alert not on admin access, but whenever I install something that hits the disk more than every ten seconds unless I've enabled some sort of log protection that has a good excuse to flush to disk.
Yeah--this means kill my antivirus while the computer sleeps. I don't care--AV doesn't work anyway.
It really does not matter who is the first. What matters is that these solutions are made available, since avoiding leaving PCs fully powered "just in case" I might want to log in from the VPN on a weekend is not a great use of energy. Both solutions at the core use WoL (Wake on LAN) or WoW (Wake on Wireless), but a separate entity holds the mapping table between the host's name, IP address and MAC address, acting as a proxy - the exact details probably vary a bit.
At the same time it would be nice to see these solutions added to other operating systems, such as Linux, and routers. My vote goes for Apple's "Wake on Demand" solution, because it works with mDNS which is available on Linux in the form of Avahi. The next thing to have are routers supporting this. It would be great to see OpenWRT adding this feature, just to show the commercial hardware manufacturers that someone else other than Apple is able to make a router which works with this.
Has anyone been able to make Linux work using Apple's "Wake on Demand" and Apple Airport? - I tried myself without much luck - there must be something I am missing.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Evidently, it's already in the works.
Yup, but I am not sure how much testing or development attention this has received. The contributor did indicate he had only tested with a VM, so it would be cool if other people could help contribute some of their time to getting this working.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
So... Microsoft's "research" seems to come from reading competitor's product specifications: my AirPort Extreme has been doing this for my network of macs for ages now - ever since Snow Leopard came out.
This is WoL combined with a proxy. Whenever the target machine is asleep, the proxy continues to respond (in this case) to Bonjour requests. When someone attempts to actually connect to the machine, the proxy sends a WoL packet out and then when the original host wakes up, it will hear from the requesting host and proceed as normal.
The one thing that's a little weird about this is that the AirPort extreme will actually wake the target machine up every few hours to make sure it's still there.
Which source file is responsible? It would be nice to add this to the Linux side, but I am not sure beyond the announcement part, what else is involved in the "sleep proxy service" to get it working.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Reinventing something that's been available for years is not 'coming up with good technologies'.
Of course not. It's Innovation(TM).
I'd dive in myself, but, alas, I do not have a router that supports mDNS.
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As opposed to this solution which requires everyone to not change a damn thing? Right.
Use an existing standard that works vs. invent something unnecessary. Which one does MS pick?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
"Duh, I'm a really smart guy I know about WOL!"
"Isn't this just WOL, way to 'invent' that Micro$haft! Hur Hur"
"Gwerp, my Mac does this!"
What a den of idiocy this place is. Did any of you even read the god damn article? Jesus Christ.
First, they didn't make it out to be something they invented or that is revolutionary. You neckbeards are erecting a firm strawman and then attacking it with your +1 Wand of Douchebaggery.
Second, read the fucking article. They are doing some other stuff:
"SleepNotifier alerts SleepServer just before the client goes to sleep, and SleepServer ensures that all incoming traffic meant for the client comes to the proxy instead," Microsoft writes in another article titled "Trying to cure PC insomnia." "The proxy server's role is to monitor traffic and respond accordingly. For some requests, it responds on behalf of the client so the client can continue sleeping, and others it ignores. Some traffic, such as a user access request, causes the SleepServer proxy to awaken the client and present the user with apparently seamless remote access."
Wake-on-LAN does not do the same thing. Not even close. WoL is simply a way to wake a computer via the LAN, as the name implies. It does not keep a computer's presence on the network, and does not wake the computer when specific normal traffic to that computer is detected - it requires a remote computer realise the computer is not there, and then wake it. What is it with the MS hate?
Wake On LAN is different to this. Very different indeed. I'd suggest you RTFA, but as this is slashdot and the hate is strong, I doubt it'd make any difference.
Windows update only pushes out important and critical fixes. Other upgrades, and definitely additional drivers still have to be installed manually.
Reinventing something that's been available for years is not 'coming up with good technologies'.
You'd have a point if Microsoft claimed to have invented anything new here.
Since they didn't, you're just a dumbass.
They've done some research into implementing sleep proxy in a Windows network environment, and wrote a paper on their findings. How the fuck is that claiming to have invented anything?
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Overall, I view it as a press release rather than something utterly profound. Then again, I designed a DVR in 1989 and the first thing I wrote in my notes was "Needs to read and write from hard drive at the same time." So perhaps I'm exceptional. But I think not.
As a tangent from that, software patents should be obvious to the practitioners of the art. Sadly, the practitioners of the art seem to be VB programmers. Can you say, "One click shopping"? Sure. I knew you could.
Here is another http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3774
Uh a DVR in 1989? So here's the question. Could it read and write at the same time? And how did you fit that much data through such a small bus?
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How is it different from http://lesswatts.org/tips/ethernet.php
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
What is it with the MS hate?
You're on slashdot aka iFan/Penguin paradise aka Steve Jobs/Linus Torvalds blowjob givers anonymous.
Wake On Lan requires a special packet, usually sent by some kind of administrative software. It does not prevent a computer from sleeping.
You are a bunch of whiny motherfucking bitches. I can't see any goddamn information in any fucking threads because a bunch of fanboys from BOTH camps are spamming and spam-modding up USELESS fucking posts like this fucking gem:
My Macs have been able to do this for some time now, and not just in "small testbeds or simulations," so what's new? Oh, I know! Microsoft is going to take an existing technology, that works rather well in my experience, and they're going to turn it into a bloated software package that costs more than the hardware you run it on, but never actually works right without the use of additional third party hardware and software, and then it'll get praised by mindless Windows jockies claiming that Apple's version was "too simple" and only good for people who don't understand how to run Windows properly. Wait... what?
Can someone tell me how the fuck this is modded insightful?
Got dammit, I hope you all burn in hell!
People, this is PURE Microsoft Marketing at it's best! This "cool" technology has been around for YEARS! Several companies (LANDesk included) have had Windows Power Management in place for # versions! I have VERY HAPPY customers that have publically stood up and posted thier $ savings on websites (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=join_change_the_world.showPledgeDriverDetails&cpd_id=7183) when they have NEVER done so before - this is how much interest saving $ on power is. The basis for the technology isn't even Microsoft, it is vPro from Intel or DASH PowerNow from AMD. These technologies are what keeps the PC "alive", not Microsoft - that is laughable! If you look at the Microsoft Windows Power Profiles, you will notice limited options, yet look at a tool written by HW vendor (Lenovo, HP, Dell, etc) for thier Windows PCs you will notice many options for managing the power state of the PC. To over simplify the situation and state that Microsoft is doing all this "cool" technologies is NOT interesting, but old hat..... Just my opinion. J
No.
Thats the point.
The end users wont have to do shit.
"His name was James Damore."