Green Metrics Tool: Measuring for fun and profit

TL;DR

The paper introduces the Green Metrics Tool (GMT), a framework for accurately measuring software resource consumption to help reduce environmental impact through better decision-making and optimization.

Contribution

It presents a novel, containerized, and reproducible framework for measuring software resource use across different phases, aiding eco-friendly software development.

Findings

GMT provides accurate resource measurement during software lifecycle phases.

The tool enables visualization, comparability, and optimization of software environmental impact.

It offers a reproducible approach to support sustainable software engineering.

Abstract

The environmental impact of software is gaining increasing attention as the demand for computational resources continues to rise. In order to optimize software resource consumption and reduce carbon emissions, measuring and evaluating software is a first essential step. In this paper we discuss what metrics are important for fact base decision making. We introduce the Green Metrics Tool (GMT), a novel framework for accurately measuring the resource consumption of software. The tool provides a containerized, controlled, and reproducible life cycle-based approach, assessing the resource use of software during key phases. Finally, we discuss GMT features like visualization, comparability and rule- and LLM-based optimisations highlighting its potential to guide developers and researchers in reducing the environmental impact of their software.