There is a lot of talk today about environmental protection and the dangers of ignoring these aspects in business processes. Many companies pay a lot of attention to being more environmentally friendly, that is why the topic of Green IT is very much on the top. There are some solutions that can help businesses achieve this goal.

Large ICT structures are many networks, devices and ports. Often, these are amounts of up to several thousand and more. Working with various technologies.

DSLAM, ADSL, Ethernet, GPON, etc. All devices consume electricity – every watt consumed is a seemingly small cost, but multiplied by thousands is a significant cost worth reducing. We should remember that when our appliances operate in air-conditioned rooms, each energy saving is multiplied by 2 in connection with the energy needed to cool the room. So, what can be done to minimize power consumption and reduce expenses?

1. Disable unused device ports – The disabled port consumes no power and the active port consumes even when not in use. Experimentally estimated savings depending on the type of device – up to 0.25W to 0.5W. Multiplying by hundreds or thousands of devices translates into significant amounts. Disabling unused ports is also one of the basic conditions of IT security.
2. Adjust port speeds to the speed of terminal equipment where this is not done automatically. The use of higher speed ports when a connected device uses a smaller one is, in some cases, an unnecessary power consumption estimated at up to about 0.4W.
3. Unused ports should be grouped on line cards. For devices that have liner cards, each with a specific number of ports, the use of these ports with a maximum packaging is a saving of 30-60W.
4. Check and update device software versions (firmware). Depending on the software version, certain devices may show differences in power consumption.
5. Periodically disable/enable certain device services and ports if they are not used, for example during the night hours https://nedaps.com/restarting-ports/.
6. Get to know your devices. Today’s network devices offer many Green Energy optimizations. Such optimizations usually need to be configured to work. The question is whether we have configured them and what to do if we decide to do so, and we have hundreds of devices in the network?

Did you know that:

• One Google search is responsible for approximately 0.2 to 7 grams of carbon emissions
• One email is consequently about 4 grams of CO2, and with a large attachment even 50 grams. 
• Watching a web page with graphics or video is a CO2 emission of 0.2 grams per second.
• Off but still plugged in, computers still consume at least 0.5 to 2 watts of power (Vampire Power)

Data obtained from: https://climatecare.org/infographic-the-carbon-footprint-of-the-internet/

SAVE THE ENERGY

We already know where we can look for savings. The problem is that our network consists of hundreds or maybe even thousands of older and newer devices, and many, many ports, usually from many manufacturers. Not all devices implement the latest energy-saving technologies. In addition, our network is alive and changing users, services, configurations – it would be ideal to analyse and optimize the use of electricity and do the related activities quite often. It would be useful to automate such processes.

The solution to the problems described above is to use NEDAPS. NEDAPS is a vendor-independent, easy-to-integrate platform for automating network configuration and service delivery in the digital age. It provides proven tools for the telecommunications operator to activate services and to integrate all OSS and BSS functionality.

Business Process Automation

To illustrate the scenario of automation of the process of reducing energy consumption, an implementation using NEDAPS mechanisms is presented below. First, the necessary processes are configured using the graphical interface and then we run them with one command no matter how big the network we have and how many devices from different manufacturers are in it. These processes include checking port usage, shutting down unused ports, checking the speed and use of line cards, verifying the configuration related to Green Energy functionality and automatically activating it where economically justified. Quickly, efficiently, and whenever you want it – this is NEDAPS.

GREEN IT – Case Study

Let’s see the specific case of a large telecommunications operator for whom the use of NEDAPS has translated into energy savings and cost reductions.

The client: Telecommunication Operator

Characteristics: Offer of various telecommunications services throughout Poland, tens of thousands of network devices of different types and different manufacturers implemented over many years.

Problem: Large number of devices, huge number of ports, dispersed structure, different manufacturers, types and models. The dynamics of change related to new services, clients and necessary network reconfigurations.

Need: Automatic analysis and control of port occupation and status (on/off). Automatic reconfiguration by changing the status of ports, automatic update of inventory documentation sets and generation of reports.

Goal: Control and update the status of equipment and ports, update inventory data, reduce electricity consumption, increase the information and communication security of the operator’s network.

A tool: NEDAPS, implementation in 2016

Energy saving effect: From implementation until September 2019, nearly one million ports were automatically shut down. In 2019 alone, about 50000 ports were shut down. Additional effects include updated inventory systems and increased awareness of the importance of energy savings and improved IT security from year to year. The financial effect: The cost of electricity consumption related to port optimisation has decreased by about 5% per year.