What role does the Open Source Business Alliance play in the ECO:DIGIT project?

At ECO:DIGIT, we are primarily responsible for integrating the developed methods into open cloud infrastructures. A key focus is the Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS). Our goal is to develop a stable monitoring and accounting system for the environmental impacts of digital services. In doing so, we work closely with technology partners like PlusServer and ScaleUp. Together, we operate productive SCS environments where specialized measuring equipment has been installed to accurately capture the energy consumption of cloud workloads. This data is then integrated into the project's assessment platform, known as the test bench.

What technical challenges do you face, and how do you handle them?

One of the biggest challenges is accurately capturing the energy consumption of cloud applications and assigning it to individual processes. In virtualized environments, many applications share the same hardware, which makes precise measurement difficult. It is particularly challenging to distinguish between the static base consumption of a system and the dynamic consumption caused by running applications. While the dynamic consumption changes with active use—such as heavy CPU or memory load—the base consumption of the system remains constant. To address this issue, we are developing a standardized measurement infrastructure that captures runtime metrics at both the host and VM levels and compares them with sensor-based consumption data. Additionally, we are building a monitoring framework that can be integrated into existing SCS infrastructures. We rely on open-source technologies and collaborate with data center operators to test and improve the methods in real-world scenarios.

Why is it so important to rely on open-source in ECO:DIGIT?

Simply put: transparency, traceability, and interoperability are the cornerstones of sustainable IT. From this perspective, the openness of ECO:DIGIT is not just a technical decision, but also an ethical principle. Only through open interfaces, open-source tools, and accessible measurement methods can we achieve a solid, reproducible assessment of the environmental impacts of digital services—especially in such heterogeneous and dynamic systems like the cloud. Open source provides the necessary foundation to offer a transparent alternative to proprietary platforms, which often allow limited insights into resource consumption. Furthermore, this approach enables us to collaborate with partners from research, industry, and civil society to work on open standards. Only if everyone participates can we create sustainable IT infrastructures that are not only theoretically sound but also practically implemented.