Using MDE to support sustainable re-engineering

By: Kevin Lano, Shekoufeh Rahimi, Zishan Rahman

Abstract

Re-engineering of legacy software systems is widely used to improve the maintainability of such systems, by migrating them to modernised platforms and environments. With increasing concern over the climate change impact of ICT, there is also a need to consider the energy use of legacy systems, and to identify and remove energy use flaws as part of a re-engineering process. In this paper we describe how energy use analysis and improvement can be carried out at the software model level within a model-driven re-engineering (MDRE) process. Our results show that significant improvements in the energy efficiency of re-engineered applications can be achieved. Additionally, we show that the energy efficiency of the MDRE process itself can be improved.

Keywords

Software energy use; Software sustainability; Model-driven engineering; Re-engineering.

Cite as:

Kevin Lano, Shekoufeh Rahimi, Zishan Rahman, “Using MDE to support sustainable re-engineering”, Journal of Object Technology, Volume 24, no. 2 (May 2025), pp. 2:1-14, doi:10.5381/jot.2025.24.2.a15.