CISQ New Standard Prospectus

Automated Source Code Resource Sustainability Measure

Motivation: Boards, shareholders, and regulators are increasing their demand for sustainable IT solutions, or as it is sometimes called, 'Green IT.' Sustainable IT systems are conservative in their use of energy, hardware, bandwidth, and other resources. However, the primary focus of sustainability is on minimizing use of energy and resources that impact the environment. This is different from the earlier use of 'sustainable systems' to indicate systems that were easy to modify and scale so that they did not have to be replaced through expensive redevelopment.

The current effort is an evolution of a seminal work dating from 2014, codenamed "green-it" (and ASCGM was the corresponding metric), and was a reference for practitioners and participants in the consortium until recently. Based on this experience, aiming to become defacto guidance in driving down energy waste across software implementations, CISQ has evolved this preliminary specification into a robust standard measure.

Content: The specification for an Automated Source Code Resource Sustainability Measure (ASCRSM) will be developed from existing weaknesses (CWEs) in the Automated Source Code Performance Efficiency Measure (ASCPEM). Weaknesses that affect resource usage from this standard will be supplemented with weaknesses from other ASCxM measures, as well as relevant weaknesses not included in the ACSxM quality standards that affect resource usage. Only weaknesses that are known to have substantial impact on resource usage will be included in the specification. The final specification is expected to include 25-35 weaknesses. We anticipate any weaknesses not currently in the Common Weakness Enumeration Repository will be issued CWE IDs after the specification is approved by OMG.

Workgroup: CISQ sponsors are invited to assign delegates to the ASCRSM Workgroup that will develop the specification for submission to OMG. Only employees or associates of CISQ sponsors are allowed to work on CISQ standards. There is no limit to the number of members a sponsor can assign, but we usually find that 3 or fewer is optimal. Most work meetings will be held virtually at a time most convenient for delegates spread over several continents. If a non-sponsor would like to get involved in the project/sponsorship, please refer them to Katie Hart, [email protected]. Timeline: Since many of the weaknesses to be included in the ASCRSM specification have already been identified, we anticipate the standard can be completed in the summer of 2022. If this timeline is achieved, the initial specification can be submitted to OMG at the September 2022 Technical Meeting. Below is a tentative project schedule.

This is a very aggressive schedule enabled by already having many weaknesses identified. If we are unable to keep this schedule, we will submit the draft for consideration at the December OMG Technical Meeting. In either case, we anticipate the standard being published by OMG in 2023.

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