Software AG and the Potsdam-based Hasso Plattner Institute for Software Systems Engineering (HPI) announced the successful completion of a one-year research project examining the impact of service-oriented architecture (SOA) governance on Green IT practices. Working together, the two organizations developed methods and tools for optimizing resource sharing of IT services, thereby reducing energy consumption and lowering hardware costs.

Heavy energy consumption and the associated economic and environmental impact that it creates has become one of the greatest challenges facing large datacenters. To counter this, the Operating Systems and Middleware team at the Hasso Plattner Institute and Software AG have conducted an 'SOA Eco Runtime Governance' study. Using CentraSite, the top-ranked solution for SOA governance and service lifecycle management, the partners created a series of new policies that can be deployed in a service-oriented architecture. Using these policies, administrators of complex IT landscapes can determine exactly how much computing power they need as well as the maximum amount of energy each service may use, which helps them regulate and more tightly control energy costs. For example, policies within CentraSite were used to allocate resources between multiple services with these policies being modified as needed at runtime.

“Through SOA runtime governance, we can give IT departments additional options for distributing their available computing power more efficiently. In this context, CentraSite serves as the central hub with HPI's technology acting as a sentinel for the system resources. This means that users can reduce maintenance and energy costs for their hardware by consolidating resources,” stated Guido Laures, Director of Product Management for SOA Governance at Software AG.

Prof. Andreas Polze, manager of HPI's Operating Systems and Middleware group, explains: “The eco-computing project is just one of our research projects in the field of operating systems. Our general focus is on new paradigms, architecture models, interfaces, and implementation technologies for supporting service-based systems. Besides resource management, our research addresses questions regarding implementation planning and charging of services.”

CentraSite is a joint trademark of Fujitsu Limited and Software AG in the United States and other countries.