Focus on Green Ethernet by D-Link
 What is Green Ethernet? Green Ethernet is an innovative new power-saving technology for networking equipment that meets the growing demand for energy-efficient products without compromising performance or functionality. D-Link is a pioneer in this area and has worked with the leading chipset manufacturers to produce the first Green Ethernet switches.How does it work?Green Ethernet works in two ways. First, it allows each port on the switch to power down into standby or 'sleep' mode when a connected end-station device such as a PC is not active. With other switches, even when the PC is turned off, they still send out a detection signal and their power consumption is almost the same. D-Link has developed a special mechanism that can detect if the PC is off and switch to a lower-energy status. Second, it detects the length of cable attached to the switch and adjusts the power accordingly. The Ethernet standard provides switches with enough power to send out a signal that reaches up to 100m in length. But many users, especially in the home environment, have Ethernet cables measuring only 5 or 10m. In fact, that is true in 90% of cases and it means the vast majority of switches are wasting energy.What benefits will users see from going Green?Reduced heat and power consumption, cost savings and a longer life expectancy for networking kit. Users may not be so aware of the power consumption of individual pieces of equipment, but they'll be able to feel the heat of them. With Gigabit products in particular, users will notice a big difference in the amount of heat emitted by the switches. This should in turn prolong the lifespan of the products, since parts will not be exposed to such long periods of heat. We've talked to many customers and everyone from the largest enterprise to the home user wants to save energy and networking devices are often the target. They're seen as very power hungry because mostly they are powered up all the time. In the US, a 2002 Department of Energy Study estimated the total power consumption of enterprise IT equipment in US offices to be 97 terawatt hours per year, which translates to around $8bn in energy costs. Even small reduction in that figure would be a sizeable saving.How much energy can you save with these products?We've done tests in our labs using power meters to measure energy consumption and if PCs connected to the switch are turned off, D-Link's Green Ethernet can save up to 87%* of the power used for each system compared to standard switches. Added to that, for cable lengths of less than 20m, Green Ethernet can save up to 11%* of the power consumption. These figures will differ for different products and scenarios, but that's a significant reduction. It means that in a standard workday scenario where PCs are used for 10 hours a day and powered off 14 hours a day, and connected to the switch using 20m cables, D-Link's Green Ethernet can save up to 46%* of the system's overall power consumption.When did D-Link first get involved in Green Ethernet and why?We've been working on it since the beginning of the year. We had customers both in the US and throughout Europe asking us if we had a Green offering so we started looking into the technology and also at the standards work at the EEE study group. The work there is only at a very early draft stage, so we investigated the technologies that are around today to see if we had the chance to realise the vision sooner. Only recently, we found selected partners which could provide the technology that enables the energy saving features � and that's why we decided to launch the Green Ethernet products.What products will go Green - who are they aimed at?All D-Link's sub-24 port desktop switches, which are aimed at the home user and small business. That includes the DGS-1005D, the DGS-1008D, and the DGS-1016D and DGS-1024D Copper Gigabit switches. Will you extend this over time to all your range?This is only the first phase of our green implementation. After this we will implement green features in our managed switches, so the enterprise can benefit from it as well. This year we want to complete the desktop switches; next year we will start with the smart switches and then the managed ones. The technology also exists within our wireless products for power-saving, but the savings you can make are less, so we're not seeing the same demand on that side. Meanwhile, we are looking to make our product's hardware and packaging more environmentally friendly too.What are the technologies that make this possible and how will they affect the switches' performance?It's fairly simple to detect whether an end-station such as a PC is switched on or off because once you plug in a cable, the switch knows whether the link is up or down. What we have developed together with our silicon partners is the capability for the switch to enter standby mode. On the cable side, we already have a feature in all D-Link products called the Cable Diagnostic Function. It's unique to D-Link and detects if it's a functional cable, a cable that can run at gigabit speed and so on. We use that technology to detect the cable length, then just adjust the power for that length.The features we are developing today make absolutely no difference to the performance of the switches. We guarantee the user cannot feel the difference in connection speeds with Green Ethernet. Are the Green Ethernet switches compatible with other products?The solution we are proposing today is compatible with all other Ethernet devices. But compatibility is not really the issue. You don't need to develop a special protocol to talk to the end-station for this to work. We are just coming up with a smart way of dealing with energy.How does your announcement fit in with the standards work that is going on?The IEEE standards effort is still in early draft format. And from our knowledge it won't be finalised for a number of years to come. So far we haven't got involved in the standards development, but we will find a suitable time to join. Because the standard will take such a long time to be ratified, D-Link as a solution provider though that if we could provide something today, then we would be some way ahead of our major competitors.Why does D-Link feel the need to be a pioneer in this space?D-Link has pioneered the future in lots of different areas. Our Wireless N products were some of the first on the market and we recently introduced a unique 11-year warranty for new and existing Wireless N users guaranteeing that our devices would be fully compatible with any future revisions of the draft specification. The Green Ethernet initiative comes in direct response to demand from the market and D-Link is once again happy to take the lead in order to bring the benefits of new technology to our customers.What do you expect will be the reaction of the rest of the industry?There's a general trend in the IT industry towards making products more green. Look at IBM and HP's recent announcements about power savings in their servers and even AMD with its CPUs. We're just moving that into the networking environment. We plan to maintain our leadership in the market for the next few years. But we believe the launch will make a very big impact and we expect competitors to quickly start looking at how they can solve the problem too.* value based on DGS-1008D, figure will vary depending on product
 FAQs Q: Can I make my existing switch Green by upgrading the firmware?
A: No, new hardware is necessary.
Q: Does this have anything to do with the work of the IEEE Energy-Efficient Ethernet Study Group?
A: No, this is an independent initiative. D-Link will of course monitor the progress of the IEEE and integrate their Green Ethernet version in their products as soon as it is ready.
Q: What benefits will users see from going Green?
A: Reduced heat and power consumption, cost savings and a longer life expectancy for networking kit. Users may not be so aware of the power consumption of individual pieces of equipment, but they'll be able to feel the heat of them. With Gigabit products in particular, users will notice a big difference in the amount of heat emitted by the switches. This should in turn prolong the lifespan of the products, since parts will not be exposed to such long periods of heat.
Q: Are the Green Ethernet switches compatible with other products?
A: The solution D-Link are proposing today is compatible with all other devices. But compatibility is not really the issue. You don't need to develop a special protocol to talk to the end-station for this to work. They are just coming up with a smart way of dealing with energy.
* value based on DGS-1008D, figure will vary depending on product (c) D-Link 2008
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