A Power Conserving Path Placement Strategy (PCPPS)

A robust network has enough capacity to satisfy demand during peak hours. It has extra capacity to ensure fault-tolerance. Many networks have a daily utilization pattern. For example, a network might be busy during the day and less busy at night. These networks have sufficient capacity during peak hours, and excess capacity during non-peak hours. Excess capacity increases energy costs and environmental impact. This document introduces a Power Conserving Path Placement Strategy (PCPPS). When possible, PCPPS concentrates traffic onto a small set of network resources. When traffic is concentrated onto a small set of network resources, other network resources become idle and can be powered down until they are needed again. This solves the problem of excess capacity during non-peak hours.