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# An Architect’s guide to reducing the carbon footprint of your applications

Treat sustainability as a core architectural requirement, not an afterthought. Discover how right-sizing microservices, leveraging ARM processors, and scaling to zero will drastically shrink your application's carbon footprint.

- **Speakers:** Ricardo Sueiras Sueiras
- **Event:** WeAreDevelopers LIVE
- **Published:** April 18, 2023
- **Duration:** 55:18
- **URL:** https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/559-an-architect-s-guide-to-reducing-the-carbon-footprint-of-your-applications

## Summary

As climate consciousness trickles down from global awareness to business imperatives, technologists are increasingly tasked with reducing the carbon footprint of their applications. Rather than waiting for legal obligations, architects and developers can proactively reshape their systems by decomposing monolithic architectures into smaller, right-sized microservices. This modularity allows teams to select the precise tool for every workload, shifting away from generic data storage toward purpose-built relational, document, or graph databases that minimize wasted compute effort. Central to sustainable architecture is eliminating computational waste through the deliberate use of modern managed services, advanced formats, and automation. Transitioning compute workloads to ARM-based processors significantly reduces energy consumption without compromising on price or performance metrics. Likewise, optimizing data schemas by leveraging Apache Parquet or advanced compression algorithms like Zstandard drastically shrinks an application's storage footprint. When migrating to cloud infrastructure, embracing a scale-to-zero mentality via serverless offerings becomes highly effective, reinforcing the concept that "the greenest power is power you don't use at all." Embedding these practices requires integrating sustainability as a core non-functional requirement during early design phases rather than as an afterthought. By engaging in open trade-off discussions with stakeholders, architects can define sustainability friendly SLAs, which might securely accept a fractional increase in latency in exchange for substantial ecological relief. Moving past the legacy anti-pattern of over-provisioning servers out of risk aversion, engineering teams must deploy automation to right-size storage and compute environments dynamically. Partnered with broad open-source utilization—which accelerates development cycles and safely extends the operational lifespan of aging hardware devices—these strategic implementations ultimately allow organizations to build greener, less expensive software architectures.

**Keywords:** software architecture sustainability, application carbon footprint, monolithic legacy modernization, microservices right-sizing, cloud managed services, serverless computing scaling, scale-to-zero architecture, ARM-based processor instances, purpose-built databases, data storage compression, non-functional sustainability requirements, sustainability friendly SLAs, resource autoscaling automation, open source hardware extension, compute instance optimization, sustainable workload scheduling

## Chapters

1. **Introduction to sustainable application architecture** (00:04) — Why tracking application carbon footprints is becoming a critical priority for long-term business compliance.
1. **Decomposing monoliths into optimized microservices** (01:29) — Breaking down large applications enables targeted rightsizing and more efficient runtime technology matching.
1. **Adopting purpose-built storage and compute instances** (05:14) — Matching databases to workloads and transitioning towards Arm-based processors drastically improves execution efficiency.
1. **Evaluating programming language energy efficiency** (09:58) — Reviewing baseline overheads helps teams select leaner backend technologies like Rust for demanding workloads.
1. **Designing for sustainable scheduling and utilization** (11:32) — Distributing cron jobs and employing asynchronous message queues prevents artificially high infrastructure usage peaks.
1. **Extending device lifecycles utilizing open source** (13:39) — Deploying lightweight Linux distributions maximizes the operational lifespan of otherwise obsolete client hardware.
1. **Prioritizing sustainability as a non-functional requirement** (14:55) — Introducing environmental metrics early forces deliberate architectural choices between maximum performance and clean execution.
1. **Leveraging managed hardware and operations natively** (17:19) — Shifting workloads to unified regional cloud data centers instantly provides distinct ecosystem power advantages.
1. **Scaling application nodes dynamically to zero** (22:05) — Eliminating idle system waste by utilizing execution-based compute endpoints that completely deactivate between calls.
1. **Customizing block storage tiers and formats** (24:10) — Selecting appropriate retrieval levels and compressing stored data significantly minimizes your overarching digital footprint.
1. **Rightsizing infrastructure allocations actively with automation** (26:03) — Discarding static over-provisioning setups in favor of tightly mapped autoscaling groups protects empty memory cycles.
1. **Maintaining lean container registries and build repositories** (28:34) — Routinely wiping redundant image versions and discarded build caches preserves physical drive requirements across CI models.
1. **Tracking efficiency utilizing balanced consumption metrics** (29:29) — Correlating gross load directly against active processing cycles reveals genuine progression versus hidden usage regressions.
1. **Applying the well-architected sustainability pillar** (34:01) — Navigating platform models correctly allows builders to bootstrap greener systems incorporating baseline infrastructural guidelines.
1. **Navigating entry paths into developer communities** (35:31) — Uncovering collaborative entry-points into broader technical spheres through dedicated open source contributions and passion-led networking.
1. **Negotiating operational standards with engineering leadership** (41:01) — Presenting environmental priorities natively aligned with corporate cost mitigation goals persuades hesitant decision-makers efficiently.
1. **Modernizing legacy execution and outdated mainframes** (44:12) — Calculating operational metrics correctly before isolating monoliths or porting archaic routines averts unplanned usage regressions.
1. **Acknowledging practical application service-level compromises** (46:36) — Communicating possible availability shifts or extended disaster revival timelines limits friction when lowering base utility inputs.
1. **Understanding the core developer advocate function** (50:57) — Acting as a customer proxy transforms real-world implementation queries into prioritized enhancements applied by central engineering teams.

## Related Moments

- [Implementing architectural best practices for sustainable software systems](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1414-a-hitchhiker-s-guide-to-resource-efficient-software) (from "A Hitchhiker's Guide to Resource Efficient Software")
- [Coding for environmental sustainability in software engineering](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/602-unlocking-the-potential-of-digital-it-at-vodafone) (from "Unlocking the potential of Digital & IT at Vodafone")
- [Connecting web performance optimization to ecological sustainability](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/937-sleek-swift-and-sustainable-optimizations-every-web-developer-should-consider) (from "Sleek, Swift, and Sustainable: Optimizations every web developer should consider")
- [Optimizing software architectures to minimize infrastructure resource drain](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/988-times-of-climate-crisis-how-and-why-sustainable-software-is-a-must) (from "Times of (climate) crisis - How and why sustainable software is a must!")
- [Adopting the shared responsibility model for cloud computing sustainability](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/570-optimizing-your-ai-ml-workloads-for-sustainability) (from "Optimizing your AI/ML workloads for sustainability")
- [Specific sustainability roles across the software development team](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/558-it-s-not-easy-being-green) (from "It's not easy being green")

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