Challenges in the development of green and sustainable software for software multisourcing vendors: Findings from a systematic literature review and industrial survey

Abstract

Green and sustainable software development has emerged in recent years, and vendors are constantly striving to develop software that has a less hazardous impact on the environment, economy, and human beings. However, developing green software in the context of software multisourcing is not a risk-free activity, and vendors are exposed to several challenges. The authors have conducted both a systematic literature review and an industrial survey to identify the challenges faced by multisourcing vendors in the development of green and sustainable software. The final publication sample for the systematic literature review is composed of 54 research papers. Similarly, the final sample of the industrial survey is composed of 108 relevant experts.The authors have identified a list of 14 challenges. Of these challenges/risk factors, 8 have been tagged as critical risk factors. These critical risk factors are "lack of green RE practices," "high power consumption," "high carbon emission throughout the software development," "poor software design (architectural, logical, physical, and user interface)," "lack of ICTs for coordination and communication," "high resource requirements," "lack of coding standards," and "lack of green software development knowledge." KEYWORDS challenges/risk factors, green and sustainable software, green software development, industrial survey, software multisourcing, systematic literature review, vendors

Sustainable Software Engineering:A Perspective of Individual Sustainability

“…However, the software engineering paradigm is shifted towards sustainable software engineering so that the developed software can endure for longer periods. Many researchers have underlined the importance of sustainable software engineering and also highlighted the various challenges and provided efforts to support sustainable software engineering dimensions [1], [7], [16], [22].…”

“…Several researchers have also highlighted the need to devise techniques and practices to support sustainable software engineering and also recommended various practices which can be used during software engineering life cycle to develop sustainable software [1], [12], [22]- [24], [30] Numerous researchers have shown their effort to incorporate the sustainability into software engineering curricula and highlight the competencies of software engineers mandatory for successful sustainable software engineering [3], [19], [28], [31].…”

Software Sustainability from A User Perspective A Case Study of A Developing Country (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)

“…There are qualitative investigations such as [10], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23] and [24] and other quantitative studies such as [11], [25], [26], [27], [28] and [29], and mixed methods studies [30] and [31], all focusing on software sustainability from different perspectives e.g. Green.…”

Investigating Students’ Sustainability Awareness and the Curriculum of Technology Education in Pakistan

“…The emerging role of technology for sustaining our society and environment is becoming crucial [1]. Although sustainability has been discussed in various fields, including manufacturing [2], Sustainability 2019, 11, 2651 2 of 18 engineering [3], and environmental sciences [4], it is also a pressing concern in the field of technology, including computer science, information technology, and software engineering [5].…”

“…In particular, it focuses more on the operational description of activities that has to infuse sustainability in their practices to achieve the target goal of producing sustainable software [10]. Consequently, design and development of software by sustainable development practices are crucial [1]. In this decisive and competitive technological era, focus on sustainable development practices to achieve sustainable software has utmost importance [7].…”