The pandemic’s first year saw an unprecedented 5.4 percent drop in carbon emissions, attributable to people being unable to travel or visit the office. But these gains are being eroded with the end of lockdowns, and a return to business as normal, with carbon emissions, predicted to bounce back to pre-COVID levels.

As more people return to the office – even in a hybrid environment – the carbon emissions of buildings and campuses have come into focus. It’s estimated that buildings generate forty percent of global carbon emissions, while building operations are responsible for 28 percent of emissions. Making buildings and campuses greener and cleaner must become a major priority if the world is going to reach net-zero by 2050 – or before.

Unlike air-con, networks can’t be switched off

Most modern buildings will shut down lights and air conditioning when there’s no one in them. This demand-based HVAC use lowers carbon emissions and reduces utility bills, but the elephant in the room is network services. Unlike air-con and lighting, networks must be available all day, every day.

Keeping networks running all the time and making sure they’re stable consumes a considerable amount of electricity. An office building with 2000 users all running a traditional network will consume as much as 83,000 kW/h of electricity per year. If this power isn’t coming from renewable sources, it becomes a huge carbon emitter.

This power consumption of traditional networks will only go up unless major changes are made to the network architecture and technology. That’s because we’re heading towards an era where everything is connected.

IDC predicts that by 2025 more than 14 billion non-IoT terminals and 41 billion IoT terminals will be connected. This influx of connectivity will accelerate campus network expansion, drive up network deployment, operations, and maintenance (O&M) costs, and increase energy consumption.

Network trends and challenges

Wireless has been a boon for network users. People are no longer bound to specific desks or rooms when they want to get online, and campus connectivity can even extend outdoors. But Wi-Fi terminals need periodic upgrades and it’s unacceptable to have to replace cable every time an upgrade is required. In addition, relying on cable from the Extra Low Voltage (ELV) room to each desktop restricts network expansion because a new cable must be deployed each time a terminal is added.

Another existing network problem is bandwidth over-subscription due to three-layer networking. The result is that by the time connectivity reaches the user, the actual available bandwidth is very low and fails to meet the bandwidth-hungry needs of Wi-Fi 6 access points.

The final problem with existing campus networks concerns the influx of IoT terminals. As the network expands, operations and maintenance become complex. Inflexible architectures result in high terminal capacity expansion costs and time-consuming provisioning.

How the smart campus network achieves green

Huawei’s low carbon smart campus network overcomes the problems of traditional network architectures in several innovative ways. First, the network is simplified from three layers to two, which slashes the number of managed nodes by 80 percent.

The smart network also allows for one cable for multiple terminals – replacing the old model of one cable per terminal – which reduces the amount of network cabling by over 75 percent.

It also uses a central switch to flexibly expand ports based on rack units (RUs) and supports unified access for up to 3,000 terminals.

This eliminates the cabling from the access switch in the ELV box or room to terminals; for example, a four-port RU decreases the number of cables needed from four to one, in turn lightening the cabling workload by 75 percent or up to 87.5 percent when an eight-port rack unit is used.

HUAWEI CONNECT is a key event on the global ICT calendar where Huawei will announce the newest products and solutions, discuss best practices, and explore paths to shared success.

SOURCE:https://brandspurng.com/2022/11/07/how-network-innovations-make-your-office-greener-and-smarter/