Green software engineering environments

Abstract

The term ‘software engineering environment’ (SEE) can be used to describe the network of people, software, hardware and infrastructure involved in the construction of software. In the past, research has focused primarily on the energy consumption of SEEs, including, for example, developer’s computers, networking equipment, mobile devices, and servers. In this chapter, we discuss work that has been conducted in investigating energy sinks in the SEE. This work includes existing methods, metrics and tools geared toward optimising and monitoring SEE energy consumption. However, the environmental impacts of creating software systems include more that just plug load energy consumption. The future of making SEEs ‘green’—that is, reducing their environmental and energetic footprints—relies on investigating impacts that are both indirect and direct, extend beyond just the physical development environment and are part of the entire software engineering life cycle.