First APSIS power-saving demonstrations slated for 2015 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo

The Adaptive Power Systems Interface Specification (APSIS), one of the cornerstones of SCTE's Energy 2020 initiative, will see its first demonstrations in working hardware at the SCTE Cable-Tech Expo 2015. The event, October 13–16, in New Orleans, will see a pair of demonstrations, one from ARRIS Group Inc. and the other from a partnership between WES and Concurrent. APSIS (standard SCTE 216 2015) defines software interfaces that enable energy measurement and optimization applications to command and control network elements. Most commonly, it will enable network operators to match the power consumption of their network elements to the amount of traffic they're supporting. For example, this could include reducing the power their network elements consume when they're not being fully utilized, such as overnight. ARRIS will offer a proof-of-concept demonstration of such an application at the show using its E6000 CER CCAP system. According to Bill Hanks, director of system engineering at the company, the ARRIS engineers have paired elements of APSIS with a proprietary energy management application. The application uses the APSIS interfaces (through a translator function; the system doesn't yet have APSIS extensions) to monitor traffic through APSIS-standard MIBs. During a simulation of a period of reduced activity, such as typically encountered during late night/early morning hours, the application will consolidate traffic transmission from among in-use line cards onto a fewer number of cards and shut down the rest. Hanks stressed that the somewhat simplified demonstration is far from a finished implementation. But ARRIS expects it will show a total power savings of 13% to 16%. Meanwhile, Hanks said ARRIS is discussing requirements with customers, including timing and which platforms to target first, as it moves towards a commercially available capability. WES and Concurrent, meanwhile, will demonstrate a similar use case. Here, Concurrent Thinking command and control DCIM software will be shown to communicate with and control IT hardware, use APSIS standard communication protocols to monitor conditions and exercise control, and measure energy use, savings, and operating times. The demonstrations likely will whet operators' appetite for such capabilities, SCTE President and CEO Mark Dzuban believes. "The intent is to give it a period of time -- it may be 6 to 12 months -- for the specification to get out," he said. "And then how does it actual turn from a specification into purchase agreements? I think that's what you're going to see in 2016." SCTE 216 2015 is available at http://www.scte.org/SCTE/Standards/Download/SCTE/Standards/Download_SCTE_Standards.aspx?hkey=63914a25-0f85-4d74-8181-c1b642039ad7.