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green software

In Energy efficient software the definition for green software is introduced as “Computer software that can be developed and used efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact to the environment”. This definition has been derived from the definition of green IT as provided by Murugesan in Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices.

There are different reasons to achieve greener IT, and a sustainability strategy is necessary.

Green Software must encompass multiple phases of the software lifecycle: hereby we describe how to address Design, Implementation and Usage.

Green design

Energy efficiency is a quality concern of software systems, and as such it must be addressed already at the early stages (design and architecture). In Energy efficient software we present a number of architectural tactics to address energy efficiency. <under construction>

Green implementation

For a product to be considered green, its production process has to keep its emission of greenhouses gases and consumption of non-renewable resources to a minimum. Software makes no exception. <under construction>

Green operation

Different ways for IT to decrease its own operation carbon footprint is by direct and indirect savings.

In direct savings the goal is to reduce the carbon footprint an IT artifact causes. Systems that consume as little energy as possible during production and operation are said to be energy efficient. Direct savings can increase the energy efficiency of a software system.

Indirect savings are done by influencing artifacts that on their own influence the energy consumption of an IT artifact. Ways to save energy indirectly include raising awareness or adding regulating and information gathering tools to a system added with the sole purpose to help accomplish direct savings.

Green software metrics

Ways to measure greenness in design and implementation are non-existent. Measuring energy consumption during operation is possible using different tools, but always with some error-margin.

Green software practices

Software energy efficiency can be increased by following best practices for energy efficient software. We extracted our list of practices from both industry and academic literature. We are currently empirically evaluating our practices, but we are already able to estimate the impact of some of them.