October 28, 2008

Ixia, Juniper Networks, LBNL unveil telecom energy efficiency metric

By Gina Roos

Santa Clara, Calif. — Ixia, a global provider of IP performance test systems, and Juniper Networks (Sunnyvale, Calif.) have unveiled the formation of the Energy Consumption Rating (ECR) Initiative in conjunction with Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL) (Berkeley, California). The ECR is a framework for measuring the energy efficiency of network and telecom devices.

In addition, Ixia has announced that its IxGreen solution and iSimCity proof-of-concept lab facility in Santa Clara will be used to launch the initiative by measuring the energy efficiency of Juniper Network's T1600 core router with measurements obtained using the newly launched ECR-controlled test methodology.

During today's (Oct. 28) live demo, ECR readings will use a multi-vendor environment consisting of the Ixia IxGreen platform, Juniper's T1600 core router and Emerson's NetSure 701 DC power system. During the test, IxGreen operates as the control point for fully integrated measurements and report generation with time-correlated energy and external load analysis.

The Juniper T1600 router is expected to demonstrate an energy efficiency rating of 9.1 watts/ Gbps in the core router class test using traffic generated by Ixia test equipment: 64 IxYukon 10 Gigabit Ethernet Ixia test ports mounted in an Ixia XM12 chassis.

"IxGreen and the ECR provide the industry with a much needed standard for energy efficiency measurement, which has served to verify the T1600's high performance and efficiency. Service providers are increasingly interested in increasing energy efficiency as a way to reduce operational costs and manage the environmental impact of their networks, and we're grateful to Ixia for providing the use of iSimCity and its IxGreen facilities to validate the performance of Juniper's products in this important area," said Opher Kahane, senior vice president and general manager, High End Systems Business Unit, Juniper Networks in a statement.

IxGreen is touted as the industry's first fully integrated "green" test and measurement solution, allowing measurement of a device's power consumption at various load conditions using real-world application traffic profiles. IxGreen offers fully integrated energy measurements, reports with time-correlated energy and external load data graphs, plus advanced computations and detailed analysis of the conducted test. Real-time performance-per-energy graphs and statistics are also available.

Ixia has integrated Emerson Network Power's NetSure 701 into its iSimCity lab for use in this test and for future energy efficiency testing. The NetSure 701 was chosen for its precision remote monitoring and control, constant DC power output, and high density.