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Greening the software

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DQW Bureau
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Avishek Rakshit
Kolkata, October 13

In the realm of green computing and practices, much has been spoken about datacenters, servers, monitors as well as IT components. However, there is not much of a hoopla in the software front. The concept of 'greener and energy-efficient software' is not a new buzzword. With the IT industry in India focusing more over hardware recycling and use of eco-friendly materials in the manufacturing process, the software front seems to have been completely overshadowed.
The firm foundation of green software can be dated back to as early as February 2007 with The Green Grid coming into effect, shortly following the revision of Energy Star. The Green Grid is a global consortium of IT companies and professionals seeking to improve energy efficiency in datacenters and business computing ecosystems around the globe. The primary objective of the organization is to unite the global industry efforts to standardize on a common set of metrics, processes, methods and new technologies. Primarily founded under the backdrop of the increasing datacenter threat to both carbon and space, the organization has a total membership base of over 200 with prominent industry leaders like Microsoft, Symantec, Intel, AMD in its Board of Directors among other companies.

However, the basic question still remains unaddressed-how can green software benefit the environment or even in the domain of IT itself. It is fuelled more by the notion that unlike hardware builders, software developers cannot build green products using alternative materials as everything is virtual in the domain of software. The simplest answer is that software can be made greener and better with enhanced performance. The efficiency of algorithms has an impact on the amount of computer resources required for any given computing function and there are many efficiency trade-offs in writing programs. As computers have become numerous and the cost of hardware has declined relative to the cost of energy, the energy efficiency and environmental impact of computing systems and programs has received increased attention. As an example, a study by Alex Wissner-Gross, a physicist at Harvard, estimated that the average Google search released seven grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) raising an environmental alarm. However, Google disputes this figure, arguing instead that a typical search produces only 0.2 grams of CO2.

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“It is not a commonly known fact that green IT also includes proper design of software. Inefficient code and algorithms can use up computer time and hence lead to greater consumption of power. It is therefore imperative that while software is developed, care should be taken to make it energy-efficient,” said Nitin Khanapurkar, Executive Director, KPMG Advisory Services. Microsoft also came under severe criticisms from UK-based, The Green Party with Derek Wall, Male Principal Speaker of The Green Party alleging, “Vista requires more expensive and energy-hungry hardware, passing the cost on to consumers and the environment. This will also further exclude the poor from latest technology, and impose burdensome costs on small and medium businesses who will be forced to enter another expensive upgrade cycle.” However, Microsoft has disputed the claim.

Concerns about the environment and power usage directly aim at one target; software builders now need to focus on greener algorithmic patterns to cut down over power usage while keeping the system performance at the optimal level. Way back in the early 90s, Microsoft included the power management feature in its OS Windows 95 for stand-by (suspend-to-RAM) system and a monitor at low power state in an attempt to save energy costs. Further iterations of Windows in the XP module added hibernate (suspend-to-disk) and support for the ACPI standard. Windows 2000 was the first NT-based operation system to include power management. This required major changes to the underlying operating system architecture and a new hardware driver model. With the advancement of technology in the recent past, Microsoft significantly improved this feature in the Vista edition by redesigning the power management system to allow basic configuration by group policy. The support offered was limited to a single per-computer policy.

The most recent release, Windows 7 retains these limitations but does include refinements for more efficient users of operating system timers, processor power management and display panel brightness. The most significant change in Windows 7 is in the user experience. The prominence of the default high performance power plan has been reduced with the aim of encouraging users to save power. Taking a cue from the energy efficiency fact in the virtual domain, industry majors like IBM, SAP and other companies have also rolled in greener software bases promoting energy conservation. The WebSphere software, designed by IBM reduces the energy cost of applications with application level virtualization that increases utilization while meeting transaction level service agreements. Also, the Rational software of the same company optimizes application design and deployment architecture for reduced resource and energy needs. With the recent set of hardware gaining an edge over its predecessors, virtualization is a concept having a rising level of appeal. “On the OS front, we often have hardware boxes which run a single OS. Today's hardware can host multiple operating systems and applications simultaneously through use of virtualization. This is yet another aspect of 'green IT,” Khanapurkar added. Computer virtualization refers to the abstraction of computer resources, such as the process of running two or more logical computer systems on one set of physical hardware. The concept originated with the IBM mainframe operating systems of the 1960s, but was commercialized for x86-compatible computers only in the 1990s. With virtualization, the system administrator can combine several physical systems into virtual machines on one single, powerful system, thereby unplugging the original hardware and reducing power and cooling consumption. Virtualization can assist in distributing work so that servers are either busy, or put in a low power sleep state. Several commercial companies and open-source projects now offer software packages to enable a transition to virtual computing.

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In the Indian context, however, a more intrinsic probe needs to be made. Unknowingly, PC users are using binary indexes in their OS to save on energy costs at the micro level. “In my opinion, currently consumers in India partially make their purchase decision based on the energy efficiency of the software or the OS. This is largely due to the lack of awareness. In India, consumers are embracing green appliances. However, due to low awareness of green software and the real environmental impact of inefficient software/OS, this has not yet become a decision point,” Khanapurkar opined. Green IT in terms of software is under the process of getting recognition in India. The Indian software companies are recognizing the need for adapting green IT concepts but more awareness is needed on this front particularly at the end-user level as the demand factor for greener software will be generated from the consumer base only. “Various large software companies will move towards having making their software Green. With this, consumers will not really have to make a choice, but will get green software and OS as part of their purchase. Smaller software companies will take a while but eventually, the market pressure will force all companies to adopt green software development processes,” he concluded.

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