  IT power usage is a significant concern. Data center energy consumption is
estimated to account for 1% to 1.5% of all energy consumption worldwide.
Hardware designers, data center designers, and other members of the IT
community have been working to improve energy efficiency across many parts of
the IT infrastructure; however, little attention has been paid to the energy
efficiency of software components. Indeed, energy efficiency is currently not a
common performance criteria for software. In this work, we attempt to quantify
the potential for gains in energy efficiency in software, based on a set of
examples drawn from common, everyday decisions made by software developers and
enterprise architects. Our results show that there is potential for significant
energy savings through energy-conscious choices at software development and
selection time, making the software and IT artifact sustainable and environment
friendly.
