Measurement and Rating of Software-induced Energy Consumption of Desktop PCs and Servers

Abstract

Up to now, the power consumption of ICT is still increasing. However, it is not clear whether or not energy savings through ICT overcompensate this increasing energy consumption. There are manifold efforts of Green IT addressing energy efficiency of computer hardware, but there is a lack of models, descriptions, or realizations in the field of computer software. In our paper, we present a method to measure and rate software-induced energy consumption of stand-alone applications on desktop computers as well as interactive transaction-based applications on servers. In both cases, realistic workloads are applied. Our test rig contains the tested system, an appropriate power meter, a workload generator, and a data evaluation system. Our measurement method is intended to support software developers, purchasers, administrators, and users in making informed decisions on software architecture and implementation as well as on software products they use or plan to use. As a proof of concept, we will describe two exemplary measurements that show the influence of software use on power consumption.