Power efficient link group communication apparatus and method

摘要

A power-efficient link group-based communication system is provided. In link group-based communication, according to the amount of transmitted traffic, an appropriate number of links in a link group are set to active mode to be used for traffic transmission, and the rest of the links in the link group are set to power save mode, thereby not transmitting traffic. Thus, efficient power reduction in the link group-based communication can be realized.

主权项

1. A link group-based communication apparatus in a communication system that transmits and receives packets to/from an adjacent node connected with a plurality of physical links, comprising:
the link group-based communication apparatus being implemented via a computer and including:
a link group management unit configured to group the plurality of physical links to form a link group supporting multi-rate mode links, and set a selected of the physical links belonging to the link group to active mode for packet transmission and the rest of the physical links to power save mode in which the physical links do not perform packet transmission, according to a comparison of an average traffic amount of transmission through various rates of the link group and a rate to perform the packet transmission; a traffic distribution unit configured to distribute packets to the selected physical links of the link group currently activated for the packet transmission and transmit the packets through the activated physical links to the adjacent node; link buffers configured to be placed at front ends of the respective physical links and temporally store packets distributed from the traffic distribution unit such that the packets are transmitted through the physical links; and a link status monitoring unit configured to calculate an average of lengths of link buffers which are connected with active mode physical links belonging to the link group, and measure an average amount of traffic transmitted through the selected of the physical links activated for the packet transmission using the average of lengths, and transmit the measured average traffic amount to the link group management unit.