Per-packet based energy aware segment routing approach for Data Center Networks with SDN

In today's scenario, energy efficiency has become one of the most crucial issues for Data Center Networks. This paper analyzes the energy saving capability of a Data Center Network (DCN) using Segment Routing (SR) based model within the SDN architecture. Apart from saving energy by turning off links, our work efficiently manages the traffic within the available links by using per-packet based load balancing approach to avoid congestion within DCNs and increases the sleeping time of inactive links. An algorithm for deciding the particular set of links to be turned off within a network is presented. Energy efficiency is measured in terms of number of links turned off and for how long the links remain in sleep mode. Results show that the proposed per-packet SR approach saves more energy and provides better performance as compared to per-flow based SR approach.