Green IT Amsterdam Region and the Software Improvement Group (SIG) organized the first workshop of the Green Software Community, with as theme 'Green Software Architecture'. For more information, please visit www.greenitamsterdam.nl/greensoftwarecommunity/ This is a presentation by Michuel Ferreira on the results on a green IT awareness survey

1. Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey”
Miguel Ferreira
2011/06/07 T +31 20 314 0950
info@sig.eu
www.sig.eu

2. Outline
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1. “Green Software Awareness Survey” – what is that?
2. Results from the survey
3. Take away message from the survey results
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

3. Green Software Awareness Survey
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Proponents
• SIG
• Consortium Green IT Amsterdam Region
Goals
• Assess how aware people are of software energy consumption issues
• Assess what kind of measures are already being taken regarding software energy
consumption
Terminology clarification
• When referring to software energy consumption or efficiency I’m are actually referring to
the energy consumed by the hardware on behalf of the software .
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

4. Respondents
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• 88 people from 5 continents
• Ages between 21 and 59
• Working with software for 1 up to 40 years as:
27%
47% Supplier/Developer
Buyer/Owner
Both
26%
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

5. Outline
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1. “Green Software Awareness Survey” – what is that?
2. Results from the survey
3. Take away message from the survey results
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

6. How do people respond to the environmental
situations we are in?
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Practices present in daily life Impact of Recycling
90%
1% 2%
80%
Very weak
70% 26% 23% Weak
Average
60%
Strong
48%
50% Very strong
40%
30%
Impact of Carbon Footprint
20% Offsetting
6%
10%
Very weak
0% 16%
21% Weak
Recycling Green Carbon Green Energy
energy footprint service labels 27% Average
providers
30% Strong
Very strong
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

7. What about when it comes to software? (1/3)
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Can two pieces of software provide the same functionality, but
have different energy consumption profiles?
2%
Yes
No
98%
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

8. What about when it comes to software? (2/3)
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How large is the potential for energy savings in optimizing
software applications?
2%
10%
18%
None
Small
Moderate
40% Large
30% Very Large
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

9. What about when it comes to software? (3/3)
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Do you think that buying/supplying energy efficient software is,
in the long run, a good investment/business?
19%
Yes
No
22% 59% Do not know
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

10. Software requirements regarding energy
consumption
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How often do you set/encounter such requirements?
3% 1%
5%
Always
Many times
Sometimes
Few times
Never
91%
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

11. Software requirements regarding energy
consumption
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Examples of such requirements are:
• Minimum lifetime in WiFi Sensor Networks
• Maximize battery life of laptops and smart phones
• Absence of flash in smart phone apps
• Avoid polling of services (eg. GPS and webservices) when application is in background
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

12. Software energy consumption monitoring
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Do you monitor/consider energy If you run software at which level do
consumption when running/developing you monitor?
software?
17%
Yes
No If you develop software at which level
do you consider?
83%
Requirements Architecture Programming Testing
elicitation
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

13. Remarks from the respondents
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Measures to be taken
• “Stimulus by means of governmental grants or tax regulation might be useful.”
• “We need more measurement data! Does it really matter?...” (and on what scale?)
• “Cloud infrastructures and PaaS/SaaS make the best contribution to energy-efficient IT.”
• “Make clear where you set your systems boundaries before making an environmental
assessment!”
Interesting observations
• “Well as usual Green is a big label which everyone use for marketing and is not really
working as its supposed to, so I hope yours is not the same…”
• “Until today, I have never thought much about it, but it´s a very interesting subject.”
• “I think it's a quite unknown field for consumers and as one of them I would like to be
informed.”
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

14. Outline
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1. “Green Software Awareness Survey” – what is that?
2. Results from the survey
3. Take away message from the survey results
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

15. What have I learnt from this survey?
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About people
• They are interested in solving the problems of our planet
• They are interested in solutions that have high impact
• They are aware that green software matters, has potential and could be good business
What is missing
• More detailed information, specifically on what actually works in each case
• Devices and services that make a difference
What can the IT community already offer
• Knowledge
• Assessments
• Monitoring
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07

16. Thank you!
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The survey is still open and should not take you more than 10 minutes to complete!
http://tinyurl.com/green-sw-survey
Miguel Ferreira
Software Improvement Group
m.ferreira@sig.eu
Results of the “Green Software Awareness Survey” – Miguel Ferreira – 2011/06/07