Overview of pioneering research and education at the Vu University Amsterdam, Software and Services Research Group, Patricia Lago.

1. SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND
GREEN IT
PATRICIA LAGO

2. Contents
• The VU University Amsterdam
• Research in Green Software
• Education: Software Engineering and Green IT
© Patricia Lago 2014

4. Interdisciplinary research
in a connected world
A collaboration between 200+ researchers from
• Computer science
• Social science (communication, organisation)
• Humanities (language, history, culture)
Example research projects:
• automated news reading to map the public debate
• analyze the 17th century creative industry through digital sources
• helping researchers to search for ancient prints
More information at
www.networkinstitute.org
Lab facilities,
Funding,
Collaboration

5. Amsterdam Data Science
Amsterdam Data Science
Marcel Worring
Basic Facts
Founded Fall 2013
Four academic partners
Built around multiple proven research
strengths in which we are world leaders
Applications
Creative Industry
Health Care
Life Science
Smart cities / Smart Citizen
ICT and Sustainability

6. Contents
• The VU University Amsterdam
• Research in Green Software
• Education: Software Engineering and Green IT
© Patricia Lago 2014

7. Credits
Giuseppe
Procaccianti
Grace Lewis
Maryam
Razavian
Paola
Grosso
Fahimeh
Alizadeh
Daniel Méndez
Fernández
Antonio Vetrò
Nelly Condori-
Fernandez
Roel Wieringa
Patricia Lago

8. Software and Energy

9. Software is energy-inefficient
Hardware
Energy-unaware
software
Hardware optimizations are
negated by software
inefficiencies [cf. Wirth’ Law]
….
© Patricia Lago 2014

10. Why: the need 4 green software

11. 80% wasted…

12. Software is energy-inefficient
[The energy efficiency potential of cloud-based software: A US case study.
Tech. rep., Berkeley, California, 2013]

13. A green label for software, too…

14. Know – Measure - Scan
Hardware
Energy-unaware
software
Hardware optimizations are
negated by software
inefficiencies [cf. Wirth’ Law]
[The energy efficiency potential of
cloud-based software: A US case
study. TR Berkeley, California, 2013]
Labels tell how much energy we
will consume with that product,
and influence our behaviour.
© Patricia Lago 2014

15. Know – Measure - Scan
Hardware
Energy-unaware
software
Hardware optimizations are
negated by software
inefficiencies [cf. Wirth’ Law]
[The energy efficiency potential of
cloud-based software: A US case
study. TR Berkeley, California, 2013]
Labels tell how much energy we
will consume with that product,
and influence our behaviour.

16. Knowledge: design, develop, reuse
• Software determines hardware behaviour
• We treat EE as a software quality attribute
1. Study the influence of software architectures on EE by means of architectural
tactics
2. Capture developers’ knowledge in SE guidelines (aka software practices)
3. Share best practices for reuse
© Patricia Lago 2014

17. Knowledge: design, develop, reuse:"
Green Architectural Tactics for the Cloud
Self Adaptation Energy Monitoring Cloud Federation
[Procaccianti et al., A Systematic Literature Review on Energy Efficiency in Cloud Software Architectures, Sustainable Computing:
Informatics and Systems, Elsevier, 2014]
© Patricia Lago 2014

18. Knowledge: design, develop, reuse:"
Green Architectural Tactics for the Cloud
[Procaccianti et al., A Systematic Literature Review on Energy Efficiency
in Cloud Software Architectures, Sustainable Computing: Informatics
and Systems, Elsevier, 2014]
[Procaccianti et al., Green Architectural Tactics for the Cloud
IEEE/IFIP WICSA, 2014]
© Patricia Lago 2014

19. Knowledge: design, program, reuse:"
EE of Software Engineering Practices
[Gude & Lago, Best Practices for Energy-Efficient Software, wiki.cs.vu.nl/green_software]
[Procaccianti et al., Empirical Evaluation of Best Practices for Energy-Efficient Software Development,
IEEE Trans. Software Engineering, under submission, 2014]
© Patricia Lago 2014

20. Knowledge: design, develop, reuse:"
Share best practices
[Gu and Lago, Estimating the economic value of reusable green ICT
practices, ICSR, Springer, 2013]
ICT and Sustainability
http://greenpractice.few.vu.nl
Work in progress
© Patricia Lago 2014

21. Measure: model, estimate, monitor
© Patricia Lago 2014

22. Scan: uncover, identify energy hotspots
Energy hotspot: element or property, at any level of abstraction of the system
architecture, that has a (potential) measurable and significant impact on energy
consumption [Procaccianti et al.]
Identify EE
hotspots
T0
measurement
Identify green
practices
T1
measurement
Phase 2:
Green scan
Phase 1:
Preparation
Select
case
Current
green
practices
Phase 3:
Learning and
communication
Generalize
reusable green
practices
Report on
green scan
[Lago & Procaccianti, Green Scan Methodology,
http://www.slideshare.net/patricia_lago/green-scanmethodology ]
© Patricia Lago 2014

23. Contents
• The VU University Amsterdam
• Research in Green Software
• Education: Software Engineering and Green IT
© Patricia Lago 2014

24. Education
Why the Track Software
Engineering and Green IT?
• Provide current professionals
and future generations
• with the appropriate skills and
competencies
• to engineer energy-aware
software and ICT systems

25. The Green Lab ©
A master course for serious experimentation in software energy efficiency
research
education
practice
“encourage critical and
interdisciplinary thinking”
“experiment with new
methods”
Plan
“pose
sustainability
challenges and
needs”
Design
Develop
Reuse
Visualize
© Patricia Lago 2014

26. Expose students to sustainability issues ‘with practice’"
Project-based Courses: service oriented design

27. Research Activity: Collaboration with the SEFLab
Measure using instrumented hardware

28. Sustainability in Software Engineering will become more
(and more) necessary…
Economic
Technical
Social
Environmental
Sustainable
Software
[Four Dimensional Sustainable E-services, by Razavian et al., EnviroInfo Conference 2014]

29. Sustainability in Software Engineering is necessary
Economic
Technical
Social
Environmental
Sustainable
Software
[Four Dimensional Sustainable E-services, by Razavian et al., EnviroInfo Conference 2014]

30. Software with Energy
Patricia Lago
© 2014
W: www.s2group.cs.vu.nl
M: p.lago@vu.nl
T: @patricia_lago