How much does it burn? Profiling the energy model of a Tofino switch

Abstract

The ICT sector, in which the Internet plays a significant role, is growing rapidly, and along with it, the amount of power required to maintain its infrastructure. This includes powering various devices such as routers and switches, but currently, we lack sufficient knowledge about their power profile. This thesis brings a piece to the puzzle by power profiling the WEDGE100BF32Q, a commercial, programmable switch intended for data centers. Hands-on experiments were performed on the device and the results show that the major factors accounting for the total power usage are: The idle power of the device, the power required to maintain enabled ports, and the additional power required to process packets at the ports and in the data plane.