# SUS 6 How do your organizational processes support your sustainability goals? Look for opportunities to reduce your sustainability impact by making changes to your development, test, and deployment practices. **Topics** + [ # SUS06-BP01 Communicate and cascade your sustainability goals ](sus_sus_dev_a1.md) + [ # SUS06-BP02 Adopt methods that can rapidly introduce sustainability improvements ](sus_sus_dev_a2.md) + [ # SUS06-BP03 Keep your workload up-to-date ](sus_sus_dev_a3.md) + [ # SUS06-BP04 Increase utilization of build environments ](sus_sus_dev_a4.md) + [ # SUS06-BP05 Use managed device farms for testing ](sus_sus_dev_a5.md) # SUS06-BP01 Communicate and cascade your sustainability goals SUS06-BP01 Communicate and cascade your sustainability goals Technology is a key enabler of sustainability. IT teams play a crucial role in driving meaningful change towards your organization's sustainability goals. These teams should clearly understand the company's sustainability targets and work to communicate and cascade those priorities across its operations. **Common anti-patterns:** + You don't know your organization's sustainability goals and how they apply to your team. + You have insufficient awareness and training about the environmental impact of cloud workloads. + You are unsure about the specific areas to prioritize. + You do not involve your employees and customers in your sustainability initiatives. **Benefits of establishing this best practice:** From optimization of infrastructure and systems to use of innovative technologies, IT teams can reduce the organization's carbon emissions and minimize resource consumption. Communication of sustainability goals can provide the ability for IT teams continuously improve and adapt to evolving sustainability challenges. Additionally, these sustainable optimizations often translate to cost savings as well, which strengthens the business case. **Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established:** Medium ## Implementation guidance Implementation guidance The primary sustainability goals for IT teams should be to optimize systems and solutions to increase resource efficiency and minimize the organization's carbon footprint and overall environmental impact. Shared services and initiatives like training programs and operational dashboards can support organizations as they optimize IT operations and build solutions that can help significantly reduce the carbon footprint. The cloud presents an opportunity not only to move physical infrastructure and energy procurement responsibilities to the shared responsibility of the cloud provider but also to continuously optimize the resource efficiency of cloud-based services. When teams use the cloud's inherent efficiency and shared responsibility model, they can drive meaningful reductions in the organization's environmental impact. This, in turn, can contribute to the organization's overall sustainability goals and demonstrate the value of these teams as strategic partners in the journey towards a more sustainable future. ### Implementation steps Implementation steps + **Define goals and objectives:** Establish well-defined goals for your IT program. This involves getting input from responsible stakeholders from different departments such as IT, sustainability, and finance. These teams should define measurable goals that align with your organization's sustainability goals, including areas such carbon reduction and resource optimization. + **Understand the carbon accounting boundaries of your business:** Understand how carbon accounting methods like the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol relate to your workloads in the cloud (for more detail, see [Cloud sustainability](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/sustainability-pillar/cloud-sustainability.html)). + **Use cloud solutions for carbon accounting:** Use cloud solutions such as [carbon accounting solutions on AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/sustainability/carbon-accounting/) to track scope one, two, and three for GHG emissions across your operations, portfolios, and value chains. With these solutions, organizations can streamline GHG emission data acquisition, simplify reporting, and derive insights to inform their climate strategies. + **Monitor the carbon footprint of your IT portfolio:** Track and report carbon emissions of your IT systems. Use the [AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool](https://aws.amazon.com/aws-cost-management/aws-customer-carbon-footprint-tool/) to track, measure, review, and forecast the carbon emissions generated from your AWS usage. + **Communicate resource usage through proxy metrics to your teams:** Track and report on your [resource usage through proxy metrics](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/sustainability-pillar/evaluate-specific-improvements.html). In the on-demand pricing models of the cloud, resource usage is related to cost, which is a generally-understandable metric. At a minimum, use cost as a proxy metric to communicate the resource usage and improvements by each team. + **Enable hourly granularity in your Cost Explorer and create a [Cost and Usage Report (CUR)](https://aws.amazon.com/aws-cost-management/aws-cost-and-usage-reporting/):** The CUR provides daily or hourly usage granularity, rates, costs, and usage attributes for all AWS services. Use [the Cloud Intelligence Dashboards](https://catalog.workshops.aws/awscid/) and its Sustainability Proxy Metrics Dashboard as a starting point for the processing and visualization of cost and usage based data. For more detail, see the following: + [Measure and track cloud efficiency with sustainability proxy metrics, Part I: What are proxy metrics?](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws-cloud-financial-management/measure-and-track-cloud-efficiency-with-sustainability-proxy-metrics-part-i-what-are-proxy-metrics/) + [Measure and track cloud efficiency with sustainability proxy metrics, Part II: Establish a metrics pipeline](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws-cloud-financial-management/measure-and-track-cloud-efficiency-with-sustainability-proxy-metrics-part-ii-establish-a-metrics-pipeline/) + **Continuously optimize and evaluate:** Use an [improvement process](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/sustainability-pillar/improvement-process.html) to continuously optimize your IT systems, including cloud workload for efficiency and sustainability. Monitor carbon footprint before and after implementation of optimization strategy. Use the reduction in carbon footprint to assess the effectiveness. + **Foster a sustainability culture:** Use training programs (like [AWS Skill Builder](https://explore.skillbuilder.aws/learn/external-ecommerce;view=none;redirectURL=?ctldoc-catalog-0=se-sustainability)) to educate your employees about sustainability. Engage them in sustainability initiatives. Share and celebrate their success stories. Use incentives to award them if they achieve sustainability targets. ## Resources Resources **Related documents:** + [Understanding your carbon emission estimations](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/ccft-estimation.html) **Related videos:** + [AWS re:Invent 2023 - Accelerate data-driven circular economy initiatives with AWS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivTJorpUTo0) + [AWS re:Invent 2023 - Sustainability innovation in AWS Global Infrastructure ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EkcwLKeOQA) + [AWS re:Invent 2023 - Sustainable architecture: Past, present, and future ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xpUQ-Q4QcM) + [AWS re:Invent 2022 - Delivering sustainable, high-performing architectures ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBc9hXQfat0) + [AWS re:Invent 2022 - Architecting sustainably and reducing your AWS carbon footprint](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsbamOLpCr8) + [AWS re:Invent 2022 - Sustainability in AWS global infrastructure ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgMa8R9-Ywk) **Related examples:** + [Well-Architected Lab - Turning cost & usage reports into efficiency reports](https://catalog.workshops.aws/well-architected-sustainability/en-US/5-process-and-culture/cur-reports-as-efficiency-reports) **Related trainings:** + [Sustainability Transformation on AWS](https://explore.skillbuilder.aws/learn/course/internal/view/elearning/15981/sustainability-transformation-with-aws?trk=f5740d24-133a-44e7-bdca-e6669e296419&sc_channel=el) + [SimuLearn - Sustainability Reporting](https://explore.skillbuilder.aws/learn/course/internal/view/elearning/20240/aws-simulearn-sustainability-reporting) + [Decarbonization with AWS](https://explore.skillbuilder.aws/learn/course/internal/view/elearning/19030/decarbonization-with-aws-introduction) # SUS06-BP02 Adopt methods that can rapidly introduce sustainability improvements SUS06-BP02 Adopt methods that can rapidly introduce sustainability improvements Adopt methods and processes to validate potential improvements, minimize testing costs, and deliver small improvements. **Common anti-patterns:** + Reviewing your application for sustainability is a task done only once at the beginning of a project. + Your workload has become stale, as the release process is too cumbersome to introduce minor changes for resource efficiency. + You do not have mechanisms to improve your workload for sustainability. **Benefits of establishing this best practice:** By establishing a process to introduce and track sustainability improvements, you will be able to continually adopt new features and capabilities, remove issues, and improve workload efficiency. **Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established:** Medium ## Implementation guidance Implementation guidance Test and validate potential sustainability improvements before deploying them to production. Account for the cost of testing when calculating potential future benefit of an improvement. Develop low cost testing methods to deliver small improvements. ### Implementation steps Implementation steps + **Understand and communicate your organizational sustainability goals:** Understand your organizational sustainability goals, such carbon reduction or water stewardship. Translate these goals into sustainability requirements for your cloud workloads. Communicate these requirements to key stakeholders. + **Add sustainability requirements to your backlog:** Add requirements for sustainability improvement to your development backlog. + **Iterate and improve:** Use an [iterative improvement process](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/sustainability-pillar/improvement-process.html) to identify, evaluate, prioritize, test, and deploy these improvements. + **Test using minimum viable product (MVP):** Develop and test potential improvements using the minimum viable representative components to reduce the cost and environmental impact of testing. + **Streamline the process:** Continually improve and streamline your development processes. As an example, Automate your software delivery process using continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines to test and deploy potential improvements to reduce the level of effort and limit errors caused by manual processes. + **Training and awareness:** Run training programs for your team members to educate them about sustainability and how their activities impact your organizational sustainability goals. + **Assess and adjust:** Continually assess the impact of improvements and make adjustments as needed. ## Resources Resources **Related documents:** + [AWS enables sustainability solutions](https://aws.amazon.com/sustainability/) **Related videos:** + [AWS re:Invent 2023 - Sustainable architecture: Past, present, and future](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xpUQ-Q4QcM) + [AWS re:Invent 2022 - Delivering sustainable, high-performing architectures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBc9hXQfat0) + [AWS re:Invent 2022 - Architecting sustainably and reducing your AWS carbon footprint](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsbamOLpCr8) + [AWS re:Invent 2022 - Sustainability in AWS global infrastructure](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgMa8R9-Ywk) + [AWS re:Invent 2023 - What's new with AWS observability and operations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8qQBMDJjso) # SUS06-BP03 Keep your workload up-to-date SUS06-BP03 Keep your workload up-to-date Keep your workload up-to-date to adopt efficient features, remove issues, and improve the overall efficiency of your workload. **Common anti-patterns:** + You assume your current architecture is static and will not be updated over time. + You do not have any systems or a regular cadence to evaluate if updated software and packages are compatible with your workload. **Benefits of establishing this best practice:** By establishing a process to keep your workload up to date, you can adopt new features and capabilities, resolve issues, and improve workload efficiency. **Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established:** Low ## Implementation guidance Implementation guidance Up to date operating systems, runtimes, middlewares, libraries, and applications can improve workload efficiency and make it easier to adopt more efficient technologies. Up to date software might also include features to measure the sustainability impact of your workload more accurately, as vendors deliver features to meet their own sustainability goals. Adopt a regular cadence to keep your workload up to date with the latest features and releases. ### Implementation steps Implementation steps + **Define a process:** Use a process and schedule to evaluate new features or instances for your workload. Take advantage of agility in the cloud to quickly test how new features can improve your workload to: + Reduce sustainability impacts. + Gain performance efficiencies. + Remove barriers for a planned improvement. + Improve your ability to measure and manage sustainability impacts. + **Conduct an inventory:** Inventory your workload software and architecture and identify components that need to be updated. + You can use [AWS Systems Manager Inventory](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/systems-manager-inventory.html) to collect operating system (OS), application, and instance metadata from your Amazon EC2 instances and quickly understand which instances are running the software and configurations required by your software policy and which instances need to be updated. + **Learn the update procedure:** Understand how to update the components of your workload. | Workload component | How to update | | --- | --- | | Machine images | Use [EC2 Image Builder](https://aws.amazon.com/image-builder/) to manage updates to [Amazon Machine Images (AMIs)](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/AMIs.html) for Linux or Windows server images. | | Container images | Use [Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR)](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECR/latest/userguide/what-is-ecr.html) with your existing pipeline to [manage Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) images](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECR/latest/userguide/ECR_on_ECS.html). | | AWS Lambda | AWS Lambda includes [version management features.](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-versions.html) | + **Use automation:** Automate updates to reduce the level of effort to deploy new features and limit errors caused by manual processes. + You can use [CI/CD](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/complete-ci-cd-with-aws-codecommit-aws-codebuild-aws-codedeploy-and-aws-codepipeline/) to automatically update AMIs, container images, and other artifacts related to your cloud application. + You can use tools such as [AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/systems-manager-patch.html) to automate the process of system updates, and schedule the activity using [AWS Systems Manager Maintenance Windows](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/systems-manager-maintenance.html). ## Resources Resources **Related documents:** + [AWS Architecture Center](https://aws.amazon.com/architecture) + [What's New with AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/new/?ref=wellarchitected&ref=wellarchitected) + [AWS Developer Tools](https://aws.amazon.com/products/developer-tools/) **Related videos:** + [AWS re:Invent 2022 - Optimize your AWS workloads with best-practice guidance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8yl1TrnuIk) + [All Things Patch: AWS Systems Manager](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhIiVsCEBu8) # SUS06-BP04 Increase utilization of build environments SUS06-BP04 Increase utilization of build environments Increase the utilization of resources to develop, test, and build your workloads. **Common anti-patterns:** + You manually provision or terminate your build environments. + You keep your build environments running independent of test, build, or release activities (for example, running an environment outside of the working hours of your development team members). + You over-provision resources for your build environments. **Benefits of establishing this best practice:** By increasing the utilization of build environments, you can improve the overall efficiency of your cloud workload while allocating the resources to builders to develop, test, and build efficiently. **Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established:** Low ## Implementation guidance Implementation guidance Use automation and infrastructure-as-code to bring build environments up when needed and take them down when not used. A common pattern is to schedule periods of availability that coincide with the working hours of your development team members. Your test environments should closely resemble the production configuration. However, look for opportunities to use instance types with burst capacity, Amazon EC2 Spot Instances, automatic scaling database services, containers, and serverless technologies to align development and test capacity with use. Limit data volume to just meet the test requirements. If using production data in test, explore possibilities of sharing data from production and not moving data across. **Implementation steps** + **Use infrastructure as code:** Use infrastructure as code to provision your build environments. + **Use automation:** Use automation to manage the lifecycle of your development and test environments and maximize the efficiency of your build resources. + **Maximize utilization**: Use strategies to maximize the utilization of development and test environments. + Use minimum viable representative environments to develop and test potential improvements. + Use serverless technologies if possible. + Use On-Demand Instances to supplement your developer devices. + Use instance types with burst capacity, Spot Instances, and other technologies to align build capacity with use. + Adopt native cloud services for secure instance shell access rather than deploying fleets of bastion hosts. + Automatically scale your build resources depending on your build jobs. ## Resources Resources **Related documents:** + [AWS Systems Manager Session Manager](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/session-manager.html) + [Amazon EC2 Burstable performance instances](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/burstable-performance-instances.html) + [What is AWS CloudFormation?](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/Welcome.html) + [What is AWS CodeBuild?](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codebuild/latest/userguide/welcome.html) + [Instance Scheduler on AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/implementations/instance-scheduler-on-aws/) **Related videos:** + [AWS re:Invent 2023 - Continuous integration and delivery for AWS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25w9uJPt0SA) # SUS06-BP05 Use managed device farms for testing SUS06-BP05 Use managed device farms for testing Use managed device farms to efficiently test a new feature on a representative set of hardware. **Common anti-patterns:** + You manually test and deploy your application on individual physical devices. + You do not use app testing service to test and interact with your apps (for example, Android, iOS, and web apps) on real, physical devices. **Benefits of establishing this best practice:** Using managed device farms for testing cloud-enabled applications provides a number of benefits: + They include more efficient features to test application on wide range of devices. + They eliminate the need for in-house infrastructure for testing. + They offer diverse device types, including older and less popular hardware, which eliminates the need for unnecessary device upgrades. **Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established:** Low ## Implementation guidance Implementation guidance Using Managed device farms can help you to streamline the testing process for new features on a representative set of hardware. Managed device farms offer diverse device types including older, less popular hardware, and avoid customer sustainability impact from unnecessary device upgrades. ### Implementation steps Implementation steps + **Define testing requirements**: Define your testing requirements and plan (like test type, operating systems, and test schedule). + You can use [Amazon CloudWatch RUM](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/CloudWatch-RUM.html) to collect and analyze client-side data and shape your testing plan. + **Select a managed device farm:** Select a managed device farm that can support your testing requirements. For example, you can use [AWS Device Farm](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/devicefarm/latest/developerguide/welcome.html) to test and understand the impact of your changes on a representative set of hardware. + **Use automation:** Use automation and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) to schedule and run your tests. + [Integrating AWS Device Farm with your CI/CD pipeline to run cross-browser Selenium tests](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/integrating-aws-device-farm-with-ci-cd-pipeline-to-run-cross-browser-selenium-tests/) + [Building and testing iOS and iPadOS apps with AWS DevOps and mobile services](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/building-and-testing-ios-and-ipados-apps-with-aws-devops-and-mobile-services/) + **Review and adjust:** Continually review your testing results and make necessary improvements. ## Resources Resources **Related documents:** + [AWS Device Farm device list](https://awsdevicefarm.info/) + [Viewing the CloudWatch RUM dashboard](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/CloudWatch-RUM-view-data.html) **Related videos:** + [AWS re:Invent 2023 - Improve your mobile and web app quality using AWS Device Farm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__93Tm0YCRg) + [AWS re:Invent 2021 - Optimize applications through end user insights with Amazon CloudWatch RUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMaeujY9A9Y) **Related examples:** + [AWS Device Farm Sample App for Android](https://github.com/aws-samples/aws-device-farm-sample-app-for-android) + [AWS Device Farm Sample App for iOS](https://github.com/aws-samples/aws-device-farm-sample-app-for-ios) + [Appium Web tests for AWS Device Farm](https://github.com/aws-samples/aws-device-farm-sample-web-app-using-appium-python)