PARIS, Jan. 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Bell Labs, the
research arm of Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU), has
released an updated version of its G.W.A.T.T. application, the
unique tool designed to help operators plan for the energy
consumption and efficiency of their networks.
Version 2.0 of G.W.A.T.T. (Global 'What if' Analyzer of NeTwork
Energy ConsumpTion) offers greater flexibility in the way operators
model their network evolution. It will also allow them to better
understand the impact on network energy consumption, cost and
carbon footprint from greater use of new technologies, such as SDN
and NFV, as well as high-bandwidth video and gaming
applications.
Increased energy consumption is a key challenge for the
Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) industry. Network
energy bills represent more than 10% of operators' operational
expenses. In 2013, 69 gigawatts was used to power data and
communication networks including data centers – the equivalent of
powering New York City 12 times
over.
Alcatel-Lucent is committed to helping operators deploy future
communications networks in an economic and sustainable way. Since
its launch in April 2014 the
application has been accessed by almost 1000 individual users to
forecast the effect of traffic projections on energy
consumption.
G.W.A.T.T. 2.0 What's New?
Many operators are
beginning their virtualization journey, with the aim of using
resources more efficiently to meet customers growing demands.
G.W.A.T.T. 2.0 will help them make more informed decisions about
their network transformation. Updates to the application
include:
- A more comprehensive method of modelling the energy impact of
introducing SDN and NFV virtualization technologies.
- A way to model specific high-bandwidth apps such as video and
gaming.
- The ability to change traffic growth assumptions based on
changing market conditions and an operator's own network
intelligence.
- The ability to model phased network upgrades, selecting parts
of the network to see the impact of a phased upgrade where before
operators could only select 100% technology replacement.
Through G.W.A.T.T. 2.0 operators are given a view of the entire
network, showing the impact of new technologies and high-bandwidth
services across the home and enterprise networks, the wireless and
fixed access networks, the metro, edge and core backbone networks
and the service core and data centers. G.W.A.T.T. 2.0 shows power
consumption at each point. This allows operators to see 'hot spots'
where most energy is consumed within the network. It can also
identify how different technologies and network evolutions can make
a network more energy efficient.
G.W.A.T.T. 2.0 addresses a variety of key questions that are
relevant to the ICT industry, including:
- What is the overall energy consumption of the telecommunication
networks?
- Where is most of the energy consumed in the end-to-end network
today and how much does it cost to power the network now and in the
future?
- How much energy is consumed by wireless networks? By data
centers?
- What is the impact of traffic growth and new applications and
services on the energy consumption of current networks as well as
future SDN and NFV-based networks?
- How will the network's energy consumption evolve based on
technology evolution over the next four years?
Joe Hoffman, Practice
Director, Mobile Networks, of ABI Research said:
"Alcatel-Lucent provides directionally correct guidance
to the telecom industry with its
G.W.A.T.T. service. The operator, regulatory and
environmental communities can assess various 'what if' scenarios
with the resulting economic impact and carbon emission. With
the G.W.A.T.T. 2.0 release, an operator can tailor the network
configuration to resemble its current network and future
architecture choices. Alcatel-Lucent is the first to quantify
the game changing nature of SDN and NFV regarding environmental
impact. Everyone with an interest in meeting the challenge of
Global Climate Change should visit the G.W.A.T.T. web site."
Greg Whelan, Principal Analyst
at Greywale Management/ACG Research said: "It really is a
question of when not if energy issues will impact carriers' bottom
line. A linear correlation between traffic growth and
OPEX can't continue. Adding an energy strategy to the mix is
the prudent thing to do. Alcatel Lucent is clearly taking the
lead to address these tough issues. Their work at Bell Labs
and through GreenTouch™ is setting the agenda for energy aware
network architectures."
Marcus Weldon, Chief
Technology Officer of Alcatel-Lucent and President of Bell Labs
said: "With the advent of the Internet of Things era, and the
inexorable consumption of video and cloud services promising to
drive massively increased traffic across networks, it is even more
important for operators to have a complete view of the energy
impact of different technology and architectural evolution options.
G.W.A.T.T. 2.0 has been built to allow operators to better
understand these evolutions and to reflect upon the way they
introduce new technology into their network."
Additional Information
- White Paper
- G.W.A.T.T. application
About Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE:
ALU)
Alcatel-Lucent is the leading IP
networking, ultra-broadband access and cloud technology specialist.
We are dedicated to making global communications more innovative,
sustainable and accessible for people, businesses and governments
worldwide. Our mission is to invent and deliver trusted networks to
help our customers unleash their value. Every success has its
network.
For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on:
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the
Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow
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SOURCE Alcatel-Lucent