Pragmatic yet effective methodology to evaluate green software for energy efficiency. It introduces the concept of "green hotspot", and is applicable for assessing software architectures against green aspects like energy efficiency and environmental sustainability

1. Green Scan Methodology
Patricia Lago and Giuseppe Procaccianti
http://www.s2group.cs.vu.nl

2. Introduction
The Green Scan Methodology is a shared research project between the Software
Engineering Group (SOFTENG) of the Politecnico di Torino and the Software Services
Research Group (S2) of the VU University Amsterdam. It aims at establishing a standard
process for improving Software Energy Efficiency.
Below you find a glossary of recurrent terms in this presentation:
● Energy Efficiency Hotspot: a module, component or code region of a SW
application that may have a critical impact on Energy Efficiency
● Green Code Smell: an implementation decision, at source code level, that makes
the software execution less energy efficient.
● Green Software Guidelines: an high-level design consideration that has to be
followed in order to build energy-efficient applications and software systems.

3. Process Overview
Identify EE
hotspots
T0
measurement
T1
measurement
Phase 2:
Green scan
Identify
Green Code
Smells
Refactor
Green Code
Smells
Case
Selection
Phase 1:
Preparation
Generalize
Green Code
Smells
Report on
green scan
Phase 3:
Learning and
communication
Generalize
Green Software
Guidelines
Elicit reusable
practices from
previous scan

4. Process Breakdown - 1
Step Input Output Tasks
Case Selection
The Software
ecosystem of
the customer
A single software
application to
analyze for EE
optimization
Interview system managers from the
customer in order to identify the target
application
Identify EE
Hotspots
The target
software
application
Code regions,
modules
Interview application experts in order to
identify which code parts are critical for EE
Identify Green
Code Smells
The target
source code
Code patterns
Analyze source code to extract the code
patterns which may cause energy waste
T0
measurement
The target
software
application
An energy
consumption
estimation
Profile the target software application to
acquire the baseline for subsequent
optimization
Refactor Green
Code Smells
Code patterns
Refactored code
patterns
Refactor code patterns in order to improve
EE
T1
measurement
The target
software
application
An energy
consumption
estimation
Profile the target software application to
quantify improvements in EE

5. Process Breakdown - 2
Step Input Output Tasks
Generalize Green
Code Smells
Code Patterns
Standard refactoring
rules
Express the refactoring
operations from the previous
steps as standard rules
Generalize Green
Software Guidelines
Standard refactoring rules
High-level design
guidelines
Compose the rules into high-
level design guidelines or
patterns as a reference for
software architects
Report on Green Scan
The quantified result of the
process
Report document
Document the previous steps
and report the energetic and
economic benefit/loss from the
process