The sustainable network : the accidental answer for a troubled planet

366 Pages·2009·10.54 MB·English

by  Sarah Sorensen

The
Sustainable
Network
The Accidental Answer for a Troubled Planet

The
Sustainable
Network
The Accidental Answer for a Troubled Planet
Sarah Sorensen
Beijing • CAmBridge • FArnhAm • Köln • SeBASToPol • TAiPei • ToKyo
The Sustainable Network
by Sarah Sorensen
Copyright © 2010 Sarah Sorensen. All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 978-0-596-15703-6
[V]
The images in the chapter openers of this book are stills taken from
the video blogs at Rocketboom.com, a New York City–based daily
international news program that covers a wide range of information
and commentary from top news stories to contemporary Internet
culture. The author gratefully acknowledges Rocketboom.com for
its assistance and generous permission to use these images to help
wryly illustrate what some might consider a dry subject.
Thank you. Keep up your unique perspective on us!

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
ChAPTer 1: I Am a Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
ChAPTer 2: What Is the Network: How Does It Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Linking Things Together 6
Protocols 8
Just a Few More Terms: Hosts, Routers, Switches, LANs, and WANs 9
ChAPTer 3: Green by Accident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
ChAPTer 4: What Makes the Network Sustainable? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
ChAPTer 5: Broadband: What Is It? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
ChAPTer 6: Can the Internet Hit a Wall? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
ChAPTer 7: The Mobile Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
ChAPTer 8: Take It with You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
ChAPTer 9: The Network’s Green Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
ChAPTer 10: Carbon Footprints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Watch Your Weight 62
A Product’s Carbon Footprint 68
The Business of Reducing Carbon 69
ChAPTer 11: Net Efficiencies: Maximizing Resources While Minimizing Waste . . 71
ChAPTer 12: What’s So Smart About an Energy Grid? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
What You Can Do 90
ChAPTer 13: Dematerialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
What You Can Do 95
ChAPTer 14: Detravelization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
What Are Some of These Detravelization Tools? 102
What You Can Do 105
What’s Being Done—A Glimpse at the Future 105
ChAPTer 15: What Is the Network: How Is Telecommuting Enabled? . . . . . . 107
IPSec 109
MPLS 110
SSL 111
ChAPTer 16: Pushing the Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Let’s Get Specific 116
What You Can Do 125
ChAPTer 17: Data Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
What About the Actual Equipment? 131
Basic Consumption Reduction 134
ChAPTer 18: Energy Efficiency Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
ChAPTer 19: Doing Good by Doing Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
ChAPTer 20: Is Broadband Really That Important? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
ChAPTer 21: Sustainable Providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
ChAPTer 22: Net Neutrality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
ChAPTer 23: Tearing Down Economic Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
ChAPTer 24: Information Is King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
ChAPTer 25: Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
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