LIFETEL: Managing the energy-lifetime trade-off in telecommunication networks

We present a novel framework to optimize the lifetime of telecommunication networks exploiting sleep mode (SM) strategy as an outcome of the LIFETEL project. We first consider the main effects impacting the device lifetime, showing that the transitions between active mode (AM) and SM may drastically reduce the device lifetime. We then propose a methodology to limit the impact on the device lifetime when SM states are exploited. Additionally, we report the main outcomes obtained from cellular and backbone scenarios. Results show that a lifetime-aware approach is of fundamental importance for limiting the impact of failures on network devices, while at the same time allowing adequate energy saving. Finally, we discuss the main challenges that still need to be faced for full adoption of lifetime-aware strategies in an operator network.