Method of reducing power consumption of network connection apparatus and apparatus for same

• US 7,839,878 B2
• Filed: 07/18/2006
• Issued: 11/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/05/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alaxala Networks Corporation (Fortinet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Alaxala Networks Corporation (Fortinet Inc.)
• Inventors: Hino, Shunsuke, Unno, Motoyuki, Doi, Toshio
• Primary Examiner(s): Pezzlo; John
• Assistant Examiner(s): HASSAN, SAAD K
• Application Number:
  US11/488,005
• Publication Number:
  US 20070053360A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,589 Days
• Field of Search: 370/389, 370/252, 370/386, 370/419
• US Class Current: 370/419
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/10 Current supply arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/08 Configuration management of networks or network elements address allocation H04L61/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring

Abstract

A network connection apparatus including: a plurality of line connection parts connected to network lines to transmit and receive packets; a transmission destination decision part for deciding a transmission destination on the basis of header information of a packet received by a first one of the plurality of line connection parts; a packet transfer part for transferring packets to a second line connection destination corresponding to the transmission destination decided by the transmission destination decision part; and, a power supply part for supplying power to the line connection parts and a power control part for controlling supply of power to each of the line connection parts from the power supply part.

Claims

1. A network apparatus connecting to a neighboring apparatus via a logical line configuring a link aggregation including a plurality of physical lines, the network apparatus comprises:

a plurality of line interfaces respectively connected to said plurality of physical lines and being adapted to transmit and receive packets to and from the neighboring apparatus;

a plurality of traffic measuring parts being adapted to measure traffic of the respective physical lines;

a determination part being adapted to determine if total traffic measured by said plurality of traffic measuring parts meets any of predetermined conditions for each logical line;

a power control part being adapted to control supply of power to the line interfaces individually; and

if the determination part determines that total traffic of a logical line meets a first condition, said power control part selects at least one line interface to which no power has been applied from among the line interfaces connected to the physical lines constituting said logical line and supplies power to the selected at least one line interface, and the selected at least one line interface starts transmitting and receiving packets via the physical line connected to the selected at least one line interface,

if there are two or more than two line interfaces to which power has been supplied and the determination part determines that the total traffic of a logical line meets a second condition, said power control part selects at least one line interface to which power has been supplied from among the line interfaces connected to the physical lines constituting said logical line and stops supplying power to the selected at least one line interface, and the selected at least one line interface stops transmitting and receiving packets via the physical line connected to the selected at least one line interface.

2. A network apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when said power control part selects at least one line interface to which power has been supplied from among the line interfaces connected to the physical lines constituting said logical line, and stops supplying power to the selected at least one line interface, where said network apparatus is configured where power is supplied to at least one line interface among the line interfaces constituting said logical line all the time.

3. A network apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the first condition is that total traffic exceeds a predetermined upper limit value, the second condition is that total traffic falls below a predetermined lower limit value.

4. A network apparatus according to claim 1, wherein if a power supply condition which specifies that to which line interface power should be supplied within a predetermined time period is set in the determination part, said power control part supplies power to the line interfaces individually in accordance with the power supply condition regardless of the first and second conditions.

5. A network apparatus according to claim 4, where if a present time is not within the predetermined time period, said determination part determines if the total traffic of each logical line meets any of the predetermined conditions, and said power control part controls supply of power to the line interfaces individually according to the first and second conditions.

6. A network apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a shaper which discards packets according to priority of traffic if the total traffic exceeds a bandwidth of the physical lines constituting said logical line.