Internet Router Technology Futures
Garry Epps Cisco Distinguished Engineer Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency, May 20-21, 2009 SBSEE – G.Epps
Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Cisco’s Green Strategy Driving to aggressive goal:
GHG down 25% by 2012
Approach: Heavy emphasis on Networking & IT – Telepresence / Collaboration – IP enabled facilities – Labs / Data Centers – Improved product efficiencies
Active participation in many standards and agencies
SBSEE – G.Epps
Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Approaches to improve Energy Efficiency Reduce peak power –Technology dependant
–Match system capacity to demand
Watts/Un it
Reduce average power
4 0 3 5 3 0 2 5 2 0 1 5 1 0 5
2002
Energy-Efficiency Gains for Cisco Set-Top Boxes
2003
2004
2005 2006 Calendar Year
2007
2008
Reduce network (average) power –Intelligent load-distribution, virtualisation, caching,…
Independent and additive SBSEE – G.Epps
Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Network equipment categories Economically driven
Technology driven
e.g. Consumer class products
e.g. High-end Internet Core Router
Power efficiency ~1Mbps
Power efficiency 1000 X
~10W Driven by cost
SBSEE – G.Epps
Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
~1Tbps ~10kW Driven by technology
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System Power drivers Technology power efficiency curve System power increases
eg. Silicon,
Scale
PSU, Tx/Rx, Display,
Scale
Analog, HDD
System power decreases
Time SBSEE – G.Epps
Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Global IP Traffic Growth IP traffic will increase 6X from 2007 to 2012 In 2012, half a zettabyte will cross the global network 46% CAGR 2007-2012
50,000
PB/mo
Mobility Business Internet Business IP WAN Consumer Internet Consumer IPTV/CATV
25,000
0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 SBSEE – G.Epps
Source: Cisco Visual Networking Index – Forecast, 2007-2012 7
Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Internet, sort-of ☺ Mobile
Access
Aggregation, Services
Core IP/Optical
MSPP Residential
Cable
STB
ETTx Business Corporate
DSL Residential
PON
Application
STB
iFrame Cache SBSEE – G.Epps
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DataCenter
VoD
VoIP
Video Broadcast 8
High-End Internet Routers
SBSEE – G.Epps
Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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High-End Internet Router History 10000
1000
System BW MHz-gate/mW
100 Mbps/W System Power
10
“System” = one chassis
20 11
20 09
20 07
20 05
20 03
20 01
19 99
19 97
19 95
19 93
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Architectural change required to improve upon the Silicon technology curve. SBSEE – G.Epps
Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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High-End Internet Routers Practical power limit reached (~10-20kW) –Legacy power/cooling infrastructure limited & costly –Must design to peak, not average load
Little opportunity to reduce average power –Idle power ~2/3 of peak power –(Usually) not practical to power down subsystems
SBSEE – G.Epps
Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Continued Growth & Efficiency Gains? Technology efficiency gains: –Silicon roadmap –Alternative technologies…
Architectural change: –Power-efficient techniques –Reduce over-engineering –Especially: • Maximum performance • Functionality/feature processing
20% per year average efficiency gain appears achievable for several years SBSEE – G.Epps
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Power-efficient architectures More parallelism vs. just cranking on raw frequency –Well-understood in the industry now –Metro: 188 parallel packet processors @250MHz (2004, 130nm) –QFP: 40 multi-threaded CPUs @1.2GHz (2008, 90nm)
Metro SBSEE – G.Epps
Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
QFP 13
Alternate Technologies Move selected functions from electrical to optical domain? e.g. Waveguides, Holographics, Silicon Photonics Cisco is engaged and tracking progress in these areas
Si Switched Delay Line Buffer Data In
Recirculating Storage Loops
Data Out
Switch/Gain Components
Source: UCSB LASOR project, funded by DARPA MTO DoD-N SBSEE – G.Epps
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Optical Packet Switch
OLR/E OLR/E PED PED
Sync/ Sync/ ORAM ORAM
Optical Optical Label Label Recovery/ Recovery/ Payload Payload Envelope Envelope Detect Detect
40G 40G FTWC/ FTWC/ OLE/ OLE/ OLW OLW
32 32 xx 32 32 (64 x 64) (64 x 64) AWGR AWGR
40G 40G TWC TWC Array Array
Electronic Electronic Header Header Lookup Lookup
LASOR research supported under DARPA/MTO DoD-N Program Award Number W911NF-04-9-0001
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Summary High-End Internet Routers –Very high power, very power efficient –No immediate threat to continued scale… …at appropriate efficiency for now –Exploring technology alternatives
Internet Energy Efficiency –Very visible issue –Being addressed broadly –Hard & easy problems
SBSEE – G.Epps
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Questions?
SBSEE – G.Epps
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SBSEE – G.Epps
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