WO2024207472A1

WO2024207472A1 - Method, and device and storage medium for port aggregation

Info

Publication number: WO2024207472A1
Application number: PCT/CN2023/087016
Authority: WO
Inventors: Daiying LIU
Original assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson AB
Current assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson AB
Priority date: 2023-04-07
Filing date: 2023-04-07
Publication date: 2024-10-10
Anticipated expiration: 2025-10-07

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method, device, and storage medium for port aggregation. In the method, a change of traffic through a virtual port is monitored. The virtual port maps to a plurality of channels. A channel of the plurality of channels is enabled or disabled based on the monitored change of traffic.

Description

METHOD, AND DEVICE AND STORAGE MEDIUM FOR PORT AGGREGATION

TECHNICAL FIELD

The non-limiting and embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the technical field of telecommunications, and specifically to a method, device, and storage medium for port aggregation.

BACKGROUND

This section introduces aspects that may facilitate a better understanding of the disclosure. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art.

Product power consumption has become an increasingly concerned issue. It may be a challenge and a consistent pursuit of the industry to improve energy efficiency of a communicate device, for example, to communicate more traffic with specific power consumption. For a transport device for traffic forwarding, which may be a switch or a router, power consumption or overhead is mainly related to a port. Once a port is UP, power consumption of the port may be fixed. As a result, if the forwarded traffic is low, power utilization of a single port may not be high.

Link aggregation is widely used in computer networking. Load balancing and link aggregation are specified in IEEE 802.3ad, 2000 Edition to increase throughput and/or provide redundancy in case one of the links fails. However, no power utilization is considered in link aggregation.

SUMMARY

This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

As discussed above, power consumption or overhead of a transport device is mainly related to a port. The traffic forwarded by a transport device may be changed over time. However, conventionally, the port of the transport device may need to have the highest speed to support the highest traffic. In this case, a large portion of the power consumption of the port may be wasted when there is little traffic at certain time periods.

To overcome or mitigate at least one of the above-mentioned problems or other problems or provide a useful solution, embodiments of the present disclosure propose a method, device, and storage medium for port aggregation.

In a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method of a communication device. In the method, a change of traffic through a virtual port is monitored. The virtual port maps to a plurality of channels. A channel of the plurality of channels is enabled or disabled based on the monitored change of traffic.

In an embodiment, the plurality of channels may comprise a plurality of channels in an optical module. Alternatively, or in addition, the plurality of channels may comprise a plurality of channels in a plurality of optical modules. An optical module of the plurality of optical modules may have one or more of the plurality of channels.

In an embodiment, a channel of the plurality channels may have a transmission rate equal to or lower than a threshold rate.

In an embodiment, it may be determined that the traffic through the virtual port is changed to be less than a first threshold. Then, the channel of the plurality of channels may be disabled.

In an embodiment, the plurality of channels may be enabled.

In an embodiment, the channel of the plurality of channels may be disabled to reduce power consumption.

In an embodiment, it may be determined that the traffic through the virtual port is changed to be equal to or greater than a second threshold. Then, the channel of the plurality of channels may be enabled.

In an embodiment, the first threshold and/or the second threshold may be a predetermined proportion of currently allowed traffic.

In an embodiment, the change of traffic may be monitored periodically.

In an embodiment, a periodicity for monitoring the change of traffic may be equal to or shorter than a threshold periodicity.

In an embodiment, the change of traffic may be monitored in a time window.

In an embodiment, the time window may comprise a predetermined time of day.

In an embodiment, the channel to be enabled or disabled may be selected from the plurality of channels based on load balancing.

In a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a communication device. The communication device comprises a processor and a memory coupled to the processor, the memory containing instructions executable by the processor, whereby the communication device is operative to monitor a change of traffic through a virtual port. The virtual port maps to a plurality of channels. The communication device is further operative to enable or disable a channel of the plurality of channels based on the monitored change of traffic.

In an embodiment, the communication device is further operative to perform the method according to the first aspect.

In a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an apparatus. The apparatus comprises means for performing the method according to the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect of the disclosure, there is provided a computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, which, when executed by at least one processor of a device, cause the device to perform the method according to the first aspect.

With the present disclosure, power consumption may be reduced, and energy utilization may be improved.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Through the more detailed description of some embodiments of the present disclosure in the accompanying drawings, the above and other objects, features and advantages of the present disclosure will become more apparent, wherein the same reference generally refers to the same components in the embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example communication environment in which embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example system architecture of port aggregation in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a flowchart of an example method of port aggregation in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a flowchart of an example process of port aggregation in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a communication device in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a computer readable storage medium in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an example of a communication system in accordance with some embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Some of the embodiments contemplated herein will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. Other embodiments, however, are contained within the scope of the subject matter disclosed herein, the disclosed subject matter should not be construed as limited to only the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided by way of example to convey the scope of the subject matter to those skilled in the art.

Generally, all terms used herein are to be interpreted according to their ordinary meaning in the relevant technical field, unless a different meaning is clearly given and/or is implied from the context in which it is used. All references to a/an/the element, apparatus, component, means, step, etc. are to be interpreted openly as referring to at least one instance of the element, apparatus, component, means, step, etc., unless explicitly stated otherwise. The steps of any methods disclosed herein do not have to be performed in the exact order disclosed, unless a step is explicitly described as following or preceding another step and/or where it is implicit that a step must follow or precede another step. Any feature of any of the embodiments disclosed herein may be applied to any other embodiment, wherever appropriate. Likewise, any advantage of any of the embodiments may apply to any other embodiments, and vice versa. Other objectives, features and advantages of the enclosed embodiments will be apparent from the following description.

Reference throughout this specification to features, advantages, or similar language does not imply that all of the features and advantages that may be realized with the present disclosure should be or are in any single embodiment of the disclosure. Rather, language referring to the features and advantages is understood to mean that a specific feature, advantage, or characteristic described in connection with an embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present disclosure. Furthermore, the described features, advantages, and characteristics of the disclosure may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize that the disclosure may be practiced without one or more of the specific features or advantages of a particular embodiment. In other instances, additional features and advantages may be recognized in certain embodiments that may not be present in all embodiments of the disclosure.

As used herein, the terms "first" , "second" and so forth refer to different elements. The singular forms "a" and "an" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. The terms "comprises" , "comprising" , "has" , "having" , "includes" and/or "including" as used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and/or components and the like, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components and/or combinations thereof. The term "based on" is to be read as "based at least in part on" . The term "one embodiment" and "an embodiment" are to be read as "at least one embodiment" . The term "another embodiment" is to be read as "at least one other embodiment" . Other definitions, explicit and implicit, may be included below.

Product power consumption is increasing concerned. A port may cause a main part of power consumption or overhead of a transport device for traffic forwarding. For example, a transport device may comprise a physical module or chip which may be connected with an optical module via a physical port. If the port is UP, traffic may be forwarded between the two modules. A combination of the physical and optical modules may have power overhead ranging from a few watts to tens of watts depending on a rate or speed of the port and the type of the optical module.

As mentioned above, once a port is UP, the power consumption of the port may be fixed. The amount of traffic forwarded through the port may have less impact on the power consumption. Thus, if the forwarded traffic is low, power utilization of a single port may not be high.

The forwarded traffic may be changed over time. At present, the actual traffic may vary periodically. For example, in a residential community, the traffic may be similar during weekdays when people work in companies. The traffic may be heavy in the evening when people come home from work and use their terminal devices heavily. There may be almost no traffic late at night because people are asleep. In the case of such variability, a port of a transport device conventionally needs to have the highest speed to support the highest traffic (for example, in the evening) even if there is little traffic at other time periods. As a result, a large portion of the power consumption of the port may be wasted. There is a need to avoid power waste on the port caused by such "tidal" traffic.

Certain aspects of the disclosure and their embodiments may provide solutions to these or other challenges. Some embodiments of the present disclosure propose a port aggregation scheme. With the proposed scheme, a plurality of channels is mapped into a virtual port at a communication device such as a transport device. The plurality of channels may be provided over one or more physical ports depending on the employed encapsulation techniques for the channels. According to the proposed scheme, a change of traffic (also referred to as a traffic change) via the virtual port is monitored, and a channel of the plurality of channels is enabled or disabled based on the monitored change of the traffic.

In this way, the proposed virtual port may operate as a high-rate port combined by a plurality of low-rate channels or ports, thereby achieving port aggregation. Link aggregation is a combination or aggregation of multiple network connections in parallel. Compared to a single connection, the combination or aggregation of the network connections may increase throughput and/or provide redundancy in case one of the links fails. A combined collection of physical ports or channels may be considered as a Link Aggregation Group (LAG) . As the number of low-rate ports or channels may be controlled based on the monitored traffic in real time, the traffic carried by the channels may reach a line speed. Thus, more traffic may be forwarded per unit of power consumption, thereby reducing power consumption and improving energy utilization.

Some example implementations will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment 100 in which embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented.

As shown in FIG. 1, the environment 100 comprises a communication device 105 which may operate as a transport device such as a switch or a router. In some embodiments, the communication device 105 may be deployed in a radio access network or a core network to forward traffic from terminal devices and network nodes. The communication device 105 may operate as any other devices capable of port aggregation.

In an example, as shown in FIG. 1, the communication device 105 may be provided with a physical module (or “PHY” ) 110. The PHY 110 may have a circuit connection 115 with an optical module 120. The circuit connection 115 may be provided via one or more physical ports. A physical port may correspond to one or more channels. For example, a low-speed port may correspond to a low-speed channel while a high-speed port may correspond to a high-speed channel or a plurality of low-speed channels.

The channels may be enabled over the optical module 110 to forward traffic towards a gateway 125 in a residential community 130 via a fiber 135, for example. In an example, at the optimal module 120, a photoelectric converter 140 may convert an electrical signal from the PHY 110 to an optical signal, and a laser transceiver 145 may transmit the optical signal towards the gateway 125.

It is to be understood that the number of devices as shown in FIG. 1 is illustrative, but not limited. The environment 100 may include more or less devices for implementing embodiments of the present disclosure. In an example, the communication device 105 may be connected with a plurality of optical modules, and an optical module of the plurality of optical modules may have one or more channels for traffic forwarding.

In various embodiments, a virtual port, also called a "power efficient port" , is defined to map to a plurality of channels. As such, lower-rate channels or ports may be combined into a higher-rate port. A physical port with a higher speed may consume more power. For example, a 10GE port consumes about 1 watt, but a 100GE port consumes from 6 watts to 24 watts according to different encapsulation such as Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable (QSFP) , C form-factor pluggable (CFG) and/or the like.

FIG. 2 shows an example system architecture 200 of port aggregation in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

In this example, as shown in FIG. 2, a plurality of low-speed physical ports 205 (for example, ten 10GE ports) may be deployed at a physical layer 210, each of which may correspond to a low-speed channel. At an abstraction layer 215, these low-speed physical ports 205 may be abstracted into a high-speed physical port 220 (for example, a 100GE port) which may be mapped into a power efficient port 225 at an application layer 230. These physical ports 205 may be considered as sub-ports of the power efficient port 225. With this abstraction, excessive physical ports may be shielded for easy management and operation, which may fit user’s usage habits, facilitate user operations and improve user experience.

According to embodiments of the present disclosure, one or more channels combined into the virtual port are enabled or disabled based on the monitored traffic change. As mentioned above, the power consumption of a physical port may be fixed after the port is UP, regardless of how much traffic is running through the port. In this situation, if a high-rate port does not enable line speed traffic, some power consumption may be wasted. It may be advantageous to aggregate multiple low-speed physical ports or channels into a single virtual port, which may be equivalent to reducing the controllable particle size of a high-speed physical port. In this way, the line speed traffic may be achieved over the virtual port, thereby improving the power efficiency.

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of an example method 300 of port aggregation in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. The method 300 may be implemented by the communication device 105 as shown in FIG. 1. For the purpose of discussion, the method 300 will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

As shown in FIG. 3, at block 310, the communication device 105 monitors a change of traffic through a virtual port. The virtual port maps to a plurality of channels. In an example, the plurality of channels may be in an optical module such as the optical module 120 in FIG. 1. For example, by employing the encapsulation techniques such as QSFP and CFG, the plurality of channels may be enabled by the optical module. In another example, the plurality of channels may be in a plurality of optical modules, and an optical module of the plurality of optical modules may have one or more channels.

In some embodiments, a channel of the plurality channels may have a lower transmission rate, for example, equal to or lower than a threshold rate. The threshold rate may be set depending on the network (operator) deployment. In an example, the threshold rate may be 10Gbit/sor 10G.

At block 320, the communication device 105 enables or disables a channel of the plurality of channels based on the monitored change of traffic. In some embodiments, the plurality of channels may be enabled first. For example, after the virtual port is enabled, all physical ports or channels may be enabled to operate at the maximum speed, to provide the highest rate to avoid traffic loss. One or more channel of the plurality of channels may be disabled as the traffic changes, for example, to reduce power consumption.

In some embodiments, if the communication device 105 determines that the traffic is changed to be less, for example, than a first threshold, the communication device 105 may disable one or more channels of the plurality of channels, for example, to reduce power consumption. Alternatively, or in addition, if the communication device 105 determines that the traffic is changed to be more, for example, be equal to or greater than a second threshold, the communication device 105 may enable one or more channel of the plurality of channels, for example, to satisfy traffic requirements.

The first and second thresholds may be set depending on the actual needs and network deployment. These two thresholds may or may not be the same. Either or both of the two thresholds may be fixed or dynamic. In some embodiments, the first and second thresholds may be statically set as a predetermined proportion (s) of full-speed or maximum traffic allowed by all the channels. For example, in the case that ten 10GE ports are aggregated into a "power efficient port" as shown in FIG. 2, the maximum traffic allowed by the ten 10GE ports is 10 × 10GE = 100G. As an example, the first and second thresholds may be set to be the same predetermined proportion (for example, 70%) of the maximum traffic allowed by all the channels. It is possible that the first and second thresholds are set as different predetermined portions of the enabled maximum traffic.

As the channel (s) is adjusted, the allowed traffic may be varied. In some embodiments, the first and second thresholds may be dynamically set as the same proportion or different proportions of currently allowed traffic which may be the maximum traffic allowed by the currently enabled channels. In this way, the channels may be adjusted in time as the traffic changes, so as to avoid traffic loss and guarantee a quality of service (QoS) .

In some embodiments, channels to be enabled and disabled may be selected based on load balancing. In an example, after the communication device 105 monitors the change of the traffic, it may determine, based on load balancing, which channel (s) is to be disabled and/or which channel (s) is to be enabled. For example, in the embodiments where a plurality of low-speed physical ports (as sub-ports) is combined into a power efficient port (as shown in FIG. 2) , by implementing load balancing (and link aggregation) between the sub-ports of the power efficient port, these low-rate sub-ports may be aggregated and used like a real physical port to share and balance the traffic. Any approach related to the load balancing and link aggregation may be used here, and the scope of the present disclosure will not be limited in this regard.

In some embodiments, the change of traffic may be monitored periodically. In an example, a periodicity for the monitoring may be shorter, for example, which may be equal to or shorter than a threshold periodicity. Depending on the implementations and network deployment, the threshold periodicity may be set as short as possible. As such, traffic changes may be detected in time, and thus corresponding measures may be taken, thereby further reducing the possibility of traffic loss.

In some embodiments, this adjustment of the channel (s) may not be very frequent, considering that the actual traffic may be relatively stable over a time period. For example, a stable low-speed flow may occur in a working day and night while stable high-speed traffic may occur in the evening. The infrequent adjustment may save channel adjustment overhead and improve adjustment efficiency.

In some embodiments, the communication device 105 may monitor the change of traffic and correspondingly adjust the channel (s) in a time window such as a predetermined time of day. As mentioned above, the traffic may change periodically over time in a day. For example, the traffic may be higher in a certain time of day while lower in another time of day. As an example, in an area of the residential community 130 as shown in FIG. 1, the traffic may have a high speed in the time period from 6: 00PM to 12:00PM on weeknights. During this time period, also referred to as a full speed window, the traffic may not be monitored, and the "power efficient port" may run at the highest speed. In this way, an occurrence of the burst of traffic during the dynamic port adjustment may be avoided, which may cause traffic lost and affect user experience.

An example process of dynamic port adjustment will be discussed above with reference to FIG. 4.

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of an example process 400 of port aggregation in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. In this example, low-speed physical ports may be combined into a power efficient port, as shown in FIG. 2. The process 400 may be implemented by the communication device 105 as shown in FIG. 1. For the purpose of discussion, the process 400 will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

As shown in FIG. 4, in the process 400, at 405, a "power efficient port" (for example, the power efficient port 225 in FIG. 2) may be enabled. In an example, after a "power efficient port" is enabled, all the mapped physical ports may be enabled to operate at the maximum speed. The actual traffic may not be known when the "power efficient port" is enabled. In this case, the running of all the physical ports at the highest rate may avoid traffic loss.

At 410, the real traffic in the "power efficient port" may be checked. In an example, the actual traffic running in the power efficient port may be periodically monitored. At 415, it may be determined whether a full speed window is configured by a customer. During deployment of port aggregation, if it is known what time of day is most likely to have high speed traffic, users or customers may be allowed to set this time period to be a full speed window. In the full speed window, the proposed port aggregation scheme may not work. In this case, the "power efficient port" may run at the highest speed, to avoid the occurrence of the burst of traffic during the dynamic port adjustment, thereby avoiding traffic loss and guaranteeing QoS.

If a full speed window is configured by a customer and a current time is in this window, the process 400 may proceed to 410 where the real traffic in the "power efficient port" is checked in the next monitoring period. If no full speed window is configured, then at 420, it may be determined whether the actual traffic exceeds a predetermined proportion (for example, 70%) of the currently allowed (maximum) traffic (as an example of the first and second thresholds for channel adjustment) . If no, one or more physical ports (for example, one or more physical ports 205 as shown in FIG. 2) may be disabled at 430. Since the disabled physical port (s) have no power consumption, power efficiency may be improved. Then, the process 400 proceeds to 410 to continue to monitor the real traffic. For example, the real traffic may be checked for the next monitoring period.

In a certain monitoring period, if it is determined at 420 that the actual traffic exceeds the predetermined proportion of the currently allowed (maximum) traffic, then one or more physical ports may be enabled at 425. Then, the process 400 proceeds to 410 to continue to monitor the real traffic.

By way of example, in the embodiments where ten 10GE ports are aggregated into a "power efficient port" that uses 100GE, as shown in FIG. 2, if all ten 10GE ports are enabled initially, the maximum traffic allowed may be:
Total possible traffic = 10 × 10GE = 100G

In the next monitoring period, it may be found that the actual traffic is only 40G, less than 70% (as an example of the predetermined proportion) of 100G. Then, a physical port may be closed, so as to save the power consumption of a 10GE port, about 1 watt. The current maximum traffic allowed may be:
Total possible traffic = 9 × 10GE = 90G

In the next monitoring period, it may be found that the traffic is still 40G, which is still less than 70%of 90G. It may be continued to close a physical port to further save 1 watt of power consumption. The current maximum traffic allowed may be:
Total possible traffic = 8 × 10GE = 80G

In the next monitoring period, it may be found that the traffic becomes 60G, which exceeds 70%of the current maximum traffic. Thus, a physical port is opened at this time. The current maximum traffic allowed may be:
Total possible traffic = 9 × 10GE = 90G

Such dynamic port adjustment as described above may cope with the sudden burst of traffic and reserve enough buffer to avoid packet loss.

FIG. 5 shows a power consumption comparison of a 100G power efficient port and a legacy 100G port in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 5, the proposed power efficient port may save power consumption significantly.

FIG. 6 shows a communication device 650 in accordance with yest other embodiments. The communication device 650 may be an example implementation of the communication device 105 as shown in FIG. 1.

As shown in FIG. 6, the communication device 650 may comprise a processor 605 and a memory 610. The memory 610 may contain instructions 615 executable by the processor 605, whereby the communication device 105 may be operative to monitor a change of traffic through a virtual port, wherein the virtual port maps to a plurality of channels; and enable or disable a channel of the plurality of channels based on the monitored change of traffic.

In an embodiment, the communication device 105 may be operative to implement actions or operations according to any of the above-mentioned embodiments described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5.

The processor 605 may be any kind of processing component, such as one or more microprocessor or microcontrollers, as well as other digital hardware, which may include digital signal processors (DSPs) , special-purpose digital logic, and the like. The memory 610 may be any kind of storage component, such as read-only memory (ROM) , random-access memory, cache memory, flash memory devices, optical storage devices, etc.

FIG. 7 shows a computer readable storage medium in accordance with some embodiments.

As shown in FIG. 7, the computer readable storage medium 700 comprising instructions 615 which when executed by a processor of a device, cause the device to perform any above-mentioned embodiments described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5.

The computer readable storage medium 700 may be configured to include memory such as RAM, ROM, programmable read-only memory (PROM) , erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) , electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) , magnetic disks, optical disks, floppy disks, hard disks, removable cartridges, or flash drives.

In some embodiments, an apparatus capable of performing the method 300 may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 300. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The apparatus may comprise means for monitoring a change of traffic through a virtual port, wherein the virtual port maps to a plurality of channels; and means for enabling or disabling a channel of the plurality of channels based on the monitored change of traffic.

In an embodiment, the apparatus may further comprise means for implementing actions or operations according to any of the above-mentioned embodiments described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5.

Although the devices described herein may include the illustrated combination of hardware components, other embodiments may comprise computing devices with different combinations of components. It is to be understood that these computing devices may comprise any suitable combination of hardware and/or software needed to perform the tasks, features, functions and methods disclosed herein. Determining, calculating, obtaining or similar operations described herein may be performed by processing circuitry, which may process information by, for example, converting the obtained information into other information, comparing the obtained information or converted information to information stored in the network node, and/or performing one or more operations based on the obtained information or converted information, and as a result of said processing making a determination. Moreover, while components are depicted as single boxes located within a larger box, or nested within multiple boxes, in practice, computing devices may comprise multiple different physical components that make up a single illustrated component, and functionality may be partitioned between separate components. For example, a communication interface may be configured to include any of the components described herein, and/or the functionality of the components may be partitioned between the processing circuitry and the communication interface. In another example, non-computationally intensive functions of any of such components may be implemented in software or firmware and computationally intensive functions may be implemented in hardware.

In certain embodiments, some or all of the functionality described herein may be provided by processing circuitry executing instructions stored on in memory, which in certain embodiments may be a computer program product in the form of a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. In alternative embodiments, some or all of the functionality may be provided by the processing circuitry without executing instructions stored on a separate or discrete device-readable storage medium, such as in a hard-wired manner. In any of those particular embodiments, whether executing instructions stored on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium or not, the processing circuitry can be configured to perform the described functionality. The benefits provided by such functionality are not limited to the processing circuitry alone or to other components of the computing device, but are enjoyed by the computing device as a whole, and/or by end users and a wireless network generally.

Claims

A method (300) of a communication device (105, 600) , comprising:

monitoring (310) a change of traffic through a virtual port, wherein the virtual port maps to a plurality of channels; and

enabling or disabling (320) a channel of the plurality of channels based on the monitored change of traffic.
The method (300) of claim 1, wherein the plurality of channels comprises:

a plurality of channels in an optical module; and/or

a plurality of channels in a plurality of optical modules, wherein an optical module of the plurality of optical modules has one or more of the plurality of channels.
The method (300) of claim 1 or 2, wherein a channel of the plurality channels has a transmission rate equal to or lower than a threshold rate.
The method of any of claims 1-3, wherein enabling or disabling (320) the channel of the plurality of channels comprises:

determining that the traffic through the virtual port is changed to be less than a first threshold; and

disabling the channel of the plurality of channels.
The method (300) of claim 4, wherein the plurality of channels is enabled.
The method (300) of any of claims 4-5, wherein the channel of the plurality of channels is disabled to reduce power consumption.
The method (300) of any of claims 1-3, wherein enabling or disabling (320) the channel of the plurality of channels comprises:

determining that the traffic through the virtual port is changed to be equal to or greater than a second threshold; and

enabling the channel of the plurality of channels.
The method (300) of any of claims 4-7, wherein the first threshold and/or the second threshold is a predetermined proportion of currently allowed traffic.
The method (300) of any of claims 1-8, wherein the change of traffic is monitored periodically.
The method (300) of claim 9, wherein a periodicity for monitoring the change of traffic is equal to or shorter than a threshold periodicity.
The method (300) of any of claims 1-10, wherein the change of traffic is monitored in a time window.
The method (300) of claim 11, wherein the time window comprises a predetermined time of day.
The method (300) of any of claims 1-12, further comprising:

selecting, based on load balancing, from the plurality of channels, the channel to be enabled or disabled.
A communication device (105, 600) , comprising:

a processor (605) ; and

a memory (610) , the memory (610) containing instructions (615) executable by the processor (605) , whereby the communication device (105, 600) is operative to:

monitor (310) a change of traffic through a virtual port, wherein the virtual port maps to a plurality of channels; and

enable or disable (320) a channel of the plurality of channels based on the monitored change of traffic.
The communication device (105, 600) according to claim 14, wherein the communication device (105, 600) is further operative to implement the method (300) according to any of claims 2 to 13.
A computer readable storage (700) medium having instructions (615) stored thereon, the instructions (615) , which, when executed by at least one processor of a device cause the device to perform the method (300) of any of claims 1-13.