Cloud Infrastructure, Efficiency and Sustainability

Host Anne Currie is Joined by the esteemed Charles Humble, a figure in the world of sustainable technology. Charles Humble is a writer, podcaster, and former CTO with a decade’s experience helping technologists build better systems—both technically and ethically. Together, they discuss how developers and companies can make smarter, greener choices in the cloud, as well as the trade-offs that should be considered. They discuss the road that led to the present state of generative AI, the effect it has had on the planet, as well as their hopes for a more sustainable future. Learn more about our people: Anne Currie: LinkedIn | Website Charles Humble: LinkedIn | Website

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News: The Developer's Guide to Cloud Infrastructure, Efficiency and Sustainability | Charles Humble [01:13] Charles Humble on O'Riley [01:50] Building Green Software [Book] [02:09] Twofish Music [48:03]

Resources: User Interface Design For Programmers – Joel Spolsky [12:03] Environment Variables Episode 100: TWiGS: Sustainable AI Progress w/ Holly Cummins [18:12] Green Software Maturity Matrix [19:09] Writing Greener Software Even When You Are Stuck On-Prem • Charles Humble • GOTO 2024 [23:42] Electricity Maps [23:57] Cloud Carbon Footprint [36:52] Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification | GSF [37:06] ML.energy [38:31] Perseus (SOSP '24) - Zeus Project | Jae-Won Chung [41:26]

If you enjoyed this episode then please either: Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts Follow and rate on Spotify Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel! Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn! TRANSCRIPT BELOW: Charles Humble: In general, if you are working with vendors, whether they're AI vendors or whatever, it is entirely reasonable to go and say, "well, I want to know what your carbon story looks like." And if they won't tell you, go somewhere else. Chris Adams: Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables, brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software. I'm your host, Chris Adams. Anne Currie: Hello and welcome to Environment Variables, where we bring you the latest news and updates from the world of sustainable software development. Today I'm your guest host Anne Currie, and we'll be zooming in on an increasingly important topic, cloud infrastructure, efficiency and sustainability. Using the cloud well is about making some really clever choices, really difficult choices upfront. And they have an enormous, those choices an enormous impact on our carbon footprint, but we often just don't make them. So our guest today is someone who's thought very deeply about this. So Charles Humble is a writer, podcaster, and former CTO who has spent the past decade helping technologists build better systems, both technically and ethically. He's the author of The Developer's Guide to Cloud Infrastructure, Efficiency and Sustainability, a book that breaks down how cloud choices intersects with environmental impacts and performance. So before we go on, Charles, please introduce yourself. Charles Humble: Thank you. Yes, so as you said, I'm Charles Humble. I work mainly as a consultant and also an author and a technologist. I have a, my own business is a company called Conissaunce, which I run. And I'm very excited to be here. I speak a lot at conferences, most recently, mainly about sustainability. I've written a bunch of stuff with O'Reilly, including a series of shortcut articles called Professional Skills for Software Engineers, and as you mentioned most recently, this ebook, which I think is why you've invited me on. Anne Currie: It is indeed. Yes. So, to introduce myself, my name is Anne C