(Paper #137)
Power consumption is a critical issue in interconnection network design, driven by power-related design constraints, such as thermal issues and power delivery design issues. Usually, off-line worst-case power analysis is used in network design to guarantee safe on-line operation, which not only increases system cost but also constrains network performance. In this work, we present an on-line mechanism, called PowerHerd, which can dynamically regulate network power consumption, and guarantee network peak power constraints will never be exceeded. PowerHerd is a distributed approach -- within the interconnection network, each router dynamically maintains a local power budget and controls its local power dissipation, and exchanges spare power resources with its neighboring routers to optimize network performance. Experiments demonstrate that PowerHerd can effectively regulate network power consumption meeting peak power constraints with negligible network performance penalty. Armed with PowerHerd, network designers can focus on system performance and power optimization for average cases.
Keywords:
Computer Networks and Communications
Architecture