Abstract

Every year Zetabytes of data are transferred through networks, and processed by increasingly powerful computers. This trend, however, is not sustainable. Not only computing-wise, but also environmentally: in this rate, by 2025 data will consume at least 20% of the world’s electricity production.

In recent years a new class of network devices, programmable network devices, has been introduced. The programmability of these devices allows us today not only to flexibly support more functionality within the network, but also to move “standard” applications to run within the network. This talk will focus on this type of processing within the network: In-Network Computing.

In this talk I will introduce in-network computing and survey the research done by my team over the last few years, providing up to x1000 power saving. I will then continue and discuss challenges and future research directions in this area. Finally, as time allows, I will present some on-going research on using in-network computing for sustainability.