Review, "Green Software Engineering" (Packt, 2024)

Sustainable and green practices create an ethical imperative by considering all impacts of product delivery rather than just profit. “Green Software Engineering’” ( Packt , 2024) by Santiago Fontanarrosa , demonstrates where our software practices can use less power, maximize repeatability, and decrease the carbon footprint.? Technological growth, especially in streaming, has put power and data consumption on an exponential path, but techniques exist to slow those areas.? One of the most original approaches to green software in some time, Fontanarrosa examines software’s environmental impacts, developing energy-efficient practices, and scaling success.? Recommended for anyone designing, developing, or delivering software solutions.

As with any implemented vision, green software approaches begin with principles, patterns, and practices.? The book roots those ideas within the idea of digital sobriety, an approach to designing leaner digital services and curbing everyday digital use.? One can then expand leaner practices into cooling for hardware, renewable energy, and data optimization.? These core aspects center on sustainable software engineering, the patterns and practices guided by the digital sobriety principle. This first section excellently grounds the reader in some core green ideas.

The second section moves on to the practical through architecture, development, testing, infrastructure, and management.? Each section introduces some new ideas, proposes measurements, and suggests solutions. The metric-based approach was incredibly useful, suggesting where plug-ins can be added to existing code to measure how much power each element consumes.? At one point, the book rates programming language energy efficiency with C/C++ as the most efficient, Java in the middle, and Python and JS as the least based on slow execution.? The practical data even includes analyzing The New York Times webpage to show where efficiencies can be gained.

Further, the text explores the different ways the cloud can accelerate growth. Numerous code samples appear for maximizing green cloud integration. Of course, once we have a cloud solution, we must consider AI/ML solutions for sustainability. Algorithms are carefully examined, showing how different data models contribute, including case studies based on linear versus recursive approaches and a random forest implementation. Each example includes the technically practical and where cost can be minimized.

Finally, the book wraps by building green practices into DevOps and compliance solutions.? There are numerous samples for building green acceptance criteria into existing software development.? Agile means delivering quickly and fail early, but this implementation suggests leaving out sustainability as a business decision rather than a technical one.? In the end, security appears from compliance metrics by reviewing the current regulations and standards around green software. The difference resolves around regulation as something that must be done, while standards are community practices, the norms agreed upon by industry.

One of the books was written well enough that I have no major complaints.? A minor issue might be the desire to see a comparative analysis of how different power metric plugins compare.? This would allow one to find the best solution.? Another good addition would be demonstrating how green practices directly affect finances.? The book suggests some techniques, but a couple of case studies showing cost savings with sustainable practices would build a better argument.?

Overall, “Green Software Engineering’” (Packt, 2024) is one of the best, most innovative approaches to revolutionizing DevOps practices in a long time.? The author takes numerous industry ideas, proven sound sustainable practices and integrates into practical solutions.? Even “digital sobriety” can easily be adapted into daily standups and scrum meetings to advocate for sustainability.? I strongly recommend reading to anyone involved in any aspect of the software, hardware, or technical delivery industries.??

Dr. Mark Peters is a Senior Director of Solutions Architecture (Raft), responsible for integrating theoretical and physical options into tailored customer deliveries. Self-styled DevOps junkie, he recently published “Confident DevOps” (2024, Kogan Page). He served 22 years as a US Air Force Intelligence officer on everything from fighters and drones to satellites.? A cybersecurity expert, he holds multiple certifications, a Ph.D. in Information Technology (Capella), and a Strategic Security Doctorate (Henley-Putnam). He authored "Cashing in on Cyberpower" analyzing a decade of cyber-attacks and has a forthcoming book,? “Mastering Enterprise Platform Engineering” (Packt, Sep-2024). ? A frequent reviewer for industry-leading books, he has written 100+ reviews and articles.