Device Power Management

The framework allows devices to reduce their energy consumption after a specified idle time interval. To perform effective device power management, system software monitors the different devices and determines when they are not in use. Since only device drivers are able to determine when a device is idle, and only device drivers are able to reduce power consumption of a device, the Power Management framework exports interfaces to enable communication between the system software and the device driver.

The Solaris Power Management framework provides the following:

• A device-independent model for power-manageable devices.

• dtpower(1M), a graphical user interface for workstation power management. (Power management can also be implemented through the power.conf(4) and /etc/default/power files.)

• A set of DDI interfaces for the device driver to notify the framework if the device can be power managed, and when it is idle or busy.