Reducing Energy Waste Due to Idle Network Devices

Abstract

Abstract-Network devices always demand full time Internet connectivity for remote access, VoIP & Instant Messaging (IM) clients and other Internet based applications. Their built-in low power management features are usually disabled by users due to their incapability of maintaining network connectivity. The concept of Network Connectivity Proxy (NCP) has recently been proposed as an effective mechanism for reducing energy waste by impersonating presence of sleeping devices. However, proposed strategies in literature for proxying applications are either impractical for today's proprietary applications or limited to only open-source applications. This paper addresses challenges in proxying presence of sleeping devices in order to reduce their network energy waste. To overcome the limitations of NCP concept, this paper proposes an intelligent collaborative proxying scheme which is practically realizable. The proposed system enables network devices to sleep when idle without losing network presence. It can proxy basic networking protocols as well as ensures to run applications on only and only single user device (smartphone, tablet, laptop or office PC) that is actively used at that specific moment. Additionally, the proposed system provides features such as auto-discovery, zero-configuration and seamless communication between devices without requiring any network settings from user.