Green IT for Dummies®

Chapter 12. Grooming the Network for Green

In This Chapter

• Understanding a network's demand for power

• Increasing network efficiency

• Greening the Internet

• Using the network for green initiatives

You may not often think about the technologies that enable you to get e-mail and the Internet, but the network inside your building can be a substantial contributor to going green. The routers and switches that move network "traffic," even the wiring in the walls, can be part of a green network.

In this chapter, we describe the network and the network devices that connect you to the outside world and make activities, such as e-mailing and surfing, possible. We discuss how always-on devices, such as gateways and routers, consume power at a small, but steady rate and how, in the aggregate, their consumption needs to be greened. We also look at some of technologies that are under development to change the way network devices and even network wiring will help reduce network power consumption in the IT infrastructure.

Power-Hungry Networks

A deep dive into the components used for networking isn't part of our purpose here, but several key concepts, including how to assess the power consumption of your network devices, are important to understanding how the network can be a contributor to making your data center more environmentally friendly.

First, here's a look at some of the main components used in a modern networking scheme:

• Router: Also called a bridge, this device routes packets of data from one network ...