[E-impact] routing around high-power links (was Re: [OPSAWG] side meeting #119: Power Metrics: concrete usage example)

[Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>]

One of the things that people have tried to do since ATM was new and fancy
was to provide for more bandwidth by taking the not-shortest path.  That is,
go around the circle rather than across it.   That has mutated into MPLS and
SRv6 efforts.  And SDN. I never was clear if anyone actually was able to do
this.

For latency-tolerant bulk traffic (think backups, but also recorded video [youtube]
might apply), going around is not that big a deal.  Particularly if one can
get a lower price.  Ha, price: we don't charge for traffic today, so any
efficies are not reflected in revenue (operator) or expense (user).

Why is this an energy issue?  Well, the shortest path links are likely to get
congested, and as a result may get upgraded to higher speeds, which often
means more energy used.  Meanwhile the circular, higher latency links might
go underused, yet still consuming energy.

So for me, this is where some new routing algorithm (or application of the
many circuit-link systems) would make significant sense.  But to make any of
this work, we need an interface from the network to the host.  Some people
thought APN was going to do this, but so far we have only
herbert-host2netsig.  Tom was planning a BOF.

--
Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>, Sandelman Software Works
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