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Definition
In the current environmental context, every single change that humanity can make for the better matters. In this light, Sustainable IT is gaining significant traction in the tech industry, steered by the importance of reducing the environmental footprint of IT operations and the need to fulfill regulatory and stakeholder requirements for transparency and sustainability.
Key relevant trends in Green IT
Among the key trends in Green IT are the rise of virtualization and cloud computing, using IoT to monitor sustainability, leveraging data analytics and AI, and the adoption of sustainable practices in software development and testing. Also notable are the rise of green data centers, energy-efficient hardware and renewable energy adoption.
Sogeti Sustainability Assessment
The question that remains is: How do we practically integrate a clean tech approach into our quality assurance practices?
The Sogeti Sustainability Assessment is a great place to start. It investigates and creates recommendations based on key areas related to the green quality success factors. Namely, it delves into the Culture of Sustainability, Quality Engineering & Test Strategy, Test Management and Test Data Management, Test Automation and Test Tooling & Test Environment.
The assessment can be taken as part of the Quality BluePrint™ which is a methodology intended to evaluate the Test Process Quality across the organization’s IT portfolio.
Alternatively, there is a second option of taking Standalone Assessment, consisting of 70 questions, which are based on the Quality BluePrint™ methodology.
Practical tips
For companies wishing to take matters directly into their own hands and already practice green IT, there are some small changes that can be implemented which can have huge potential environmental benefits.
Energy efficiency
One of the environmental impacts of IT-centric companies is the energy consumption. A clear win would be implementing renewable energies sources to power the infrastructure. Another consideration is to assess the energy consumption of environments and processes and adjust the usage accordingly.
Sustainability as a factor
When considering a new tool, framework or language to work with, sustainability should be included as a high weighing factor in the analysis. It should be remembered that some coding languages and tools are much more energy-efficient than others. Additionally, practices such as virtualisation and cloud-based testing could also significantly diminish the impact of hardware consumption.
Optimise resource usage
By tweaking the current practices even slightly, the carbon footprint of testing activities can be significantly reduced. Code should be optimised in order to improve efficiency. Also, the test automation process itself can be enhanced by using a risk-based testing approach for executing the most relevant scripts.
Compliance and regulation
There is a surge of environmental laws and it is important for the QA Engineers to stay up to date about the ones applicable to software development and testing and ensure that the testing processes comply with the relevant regulations and standards.
Data management
Running a single test can require a considerable amount of data creation. It is important to optimize storage and minimise unnecessary data duplication during test. Data compression techniques could be helpful in this case for reducing the environmental impact.
Continuous improvement
Fostering a mindset of continuously finding innovative methods to diminish the environmental footprint of software testing is highly recommended. This way, the IT team can be encouraged to innovate and research eco-friendly testing practices and tools.
