ENERGY EFFICIENT ROUTING AND SWITCHING

摘要

This invention relates to a method and a node for energy efficient routing and switching in a communication network. When determining the best path from an originating node to a destination node, current routing or switching protocols use route selection metrics based on the bandwidth of the link interface. Certain paths are however consuming more power that others which can result in traffic flowing over a high power consuming and long distance path, because this is the best path based on the existing metrics. The present invention overcomes this by introducing a node and a method to switch data also using energy consumption metrics. These metrics can be based on the power consumption in link interfaces, the links and in the node.