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[Project Proposal] Certified Green Cloud Engineer Exam #92

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camcash17 opened this issue Mar 16, 2023 · 23 comments
Open

[Project Proposal] Certified Green Cloud Engineer Exam #92

camcash17 opened this issue Mar 16, 2023 · 23 comments
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@russelltrow

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@camcash17
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Working Title: Certified Green Cloud Engineer Exam

Tagline: Prove your green software expertise

Abstract:
The Green Software Certification Exam is a practical certification program offered through the Green Software Foundation that measures the knowledge and training of green software practitioners. The program aims to improve the development of environmentally sustainable software solutions, while also establishing a recognized standard for green software expertise.

Quote:
"As businesses increasingly recognize the importance of reducing their environmental impact, the Green Software Certification Exam provides a critical tool for identifying professionals with the specialized knowledge and skills to develop environmentally sustainable software solutions. We believe this certification program will help drive innovation and progress in the tech industry towards a more sustainable future." - Jane Smith, CEO of XYZ Corporation

Audience:
The primary audience for this certification program is cloud engineers software developers, engineers, and project managers who are interested in developing environmentally sustainable software solutions. This exam would need to be marketed to tech companies, environmental organizations, and educational institutions. People interested in this project could attend conferences and reference material such as the Linux Foundation's Open Source Summit, GreenBiz Conference, and Environmental Leader & Energy Manager Conference.

ToC:
This project will support both the "knowledge" and "tech culture" pillars of our Theory of Change. By providing a certification exam via the Linux Foundation that measures the practical knowledge and training of green software practitioners, we aim to encourage more individuals to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to develop and implement sustainable software solutions. In addition, this certification will help to promote a culture of sustainability within the tech industry by recognizing and rewarding individuals who prioritize sustainability in their work. By encouraging and recognizing sustainable practices within the tech industry, we can create a community of professionals who are dedicated to developing and implementing solutions that prioritize environmental sustainability.

Governance: The Community working group should govern this project.

Problem:
Lack of standardized green software development practices and certification programs.
Limited awareness of the importance of environmentally sustainable software development.
Difficulty in identifying software professionals with specialized knowledge in green software development.

The Green Software Certification Exam addresses these problems by establishing a recognized certification program that validates a practitioner's expertise in green software development. It provides a standardized set of green software development practices and increases awareness of the importance of environmentally sustainable software development.

Solution:
The Certified Green Cloud Engineer Exam is a practical certification program that measures a practitioner's knowledge and skills in developing environmentally sustainable software solutions in the cloud. The exam covers topics such as green software principles which include energy efficiency and carbon awareness. It can also reference specific patterns from the pattern catalog and how one might make an accurate Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) calculation. It can also cover resource optimization, sustainable software design, and green software development practices. The exam is administered online and can be taken at any time.

The certification program provides a recognized standard for green software expertise and can be used by tech companies to identify professionals with specialized knowledge in green software development. The program also provides guidance on the best resources for developing environmentally sustainable software solutions.

Closure:
The success of the Green Software Certification Exam can be measured by the number of certified professionals and the adoption of the green software development practices. Successor projects could include the development of training programs and workshops to help professionals prepare for the certification exam and to promote the adoption of green software development practices.

FAQ:
Q: How is this certification different from other software development certifications?
A: This certification program specifically focuses on environmentally sustainable software development practices and is the first of its kind to provide a recognized standard for green software expertise.

Q: Can the certification program be taken in-person?
A: No, the certification program is administered online and can be taken at any time.

Q: Is this certification program only available to professionals in the tech industry?
A: No, the certification program is available to anyone interested in developing environmentally sustainable software solutions.
@jawache
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jawache commented Mar 23, 2023

Thanks @camcash17, I think this is a very interesting proposal. The need for a more formal qualification in this space has come up many times in conversations I've had with member orgs and other bodies. I've seen it several times in very large request for quotes for projects (e.g. how many of the developers who'll be working on our projects have been trained up on green skills).

In terms of return on investment it's also one of those projects with minimal investment and potentially high returns. Creating the content is the high effort part, creating the questions was quite easy and we got a lot more feedback from LF and I remember Accenture learning team joined in to help us craft our questions for the 101 training. I actually remember that part as the fun part :)

  • We define a syllabus with a set of learning objectives.
  • We point people to existing reading material, on our site, on other sites, books etc... there is a lot more now than there was even 1 year ago.
  • When they are ready they can take the exam on whatever platform makes the most sense.

If this is accepted as an incubation project I would suggest as the first step to come up with a more formal proposal by speaking to others in this space. We can speak to other orgs that have created their own certs like perhaps FinOps, find out more info about how they did it/learnings?
Then reach out to our member orgs ask directly if this is something they are interested in and if so to reach out to their learning teams and see if anyone wants to join the calls - I'd say we get them involved as early as possible since our goal after the course is created should be to get as many of our member orgs to adopt the certification internally, getting them involved from the start would be the best way I think.

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@tmcclell
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Virginie - Looking at nonfunctional requirements for realistic approach regardless of language uses, etc. More in-depth certification would be valuable. Oleg - Who would take on constructing and monitoring the exam? Tammy - if accepted as incubation - move to OC for budget, PM assignment and what topics could be covered. Cameron - software boundaries, carbon awareness, carbon aware SDK use. Things a technical engineer who specializes in green should know.

@tmcclell
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tmcclell commented Apr 4, 2023

Incubation - low level, assign PM. Create repo, page a wiki, assign lead and PM, develop roadmap. Develop project scope.

This was referenced Apr 5, 2023
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@navveenb
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Interesting idea. I would be interested to collaborate.

@tmcclell tmcclell mentioned this issue Apr 18, 2023
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@tmcclell
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Discussion about timing, gap in market, etc. Action: Review CNCF to review how they do Kubernetes (vendor specific, tool specific) , low cost options- @adamj89 Potential to use the book as study material for the exam, but until it's published - Anne

@navveenb
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Green Cloud Exam certification can provide a holistic cloud-neutral certification - Data, Architecture, Operations, Database, Kubernetes, AI, on the cloud....

@adamj89 adamj89 self-assigned this May 9, 2023
@russelltrow russelltrow assigned russelltrow and unassigned adamj89 Sep 6, 2023
@russelltrow russelltrow transferred this issue from Green-Software-Foundation/projects Nov 29, 2023
@aecurrie
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aecurrie commented Nov 30, 2023 via email

@swapnilguptaTW
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This sounds interesting and something that I was thinking of as well. Google has taken several measures to be the most environmentally friendly cloud infrastructure. Just a thought, collaborating(suggestions/ideas/inputs) with Google or with other cloud orgs(as Azure and AWS are treading on the same path) would help to provide more insights for this project.

@jawache
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jawache commented Dec 28, 2023 •
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So just to summarise where we landed with this. We did officially launch it as a project but then it just stalled since we were in a holding pattern with figuring out which platform we should be using as we were having deep problems and many of our members were experiencing lots of limitations with the LF platform we are using right now. Long story short we couldn't resolve these problems decided to build/buy our own platform, happy to provide the details in another communication if interested - it's a lengthy discussion.

  • Step 1 is building/buying the new platform.
  • Step 2 is moving the existing principles exam to that platform.
  • Step 3 is building more involved certifiation as described above using the new platform. Which is where this project comes into play. Target for step 1+2 is end Q1 2023.

So let's circle back next year, we can start figuring out the plan for this project even in Q1, e.g. we can start the conversations about which syllabus/questions for this exam without having the platform ready to run the exam.

@camcash17 it's been a while, do you still have bandwidth to drive this project? Sounds like @swapnilguptaTW, @navveenb are both interested also!

cc/ @russelltrow

@swapnilguptaTW
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For me timing is an issue. These calls are too late as per IST.

@jawache
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jawache commented Jan 17, 2024

Gotcha, maybe we just run this project async?

In fact I'm starting to suspect the solution might be to hire a consultant who can design the exam based on guidance from the project team.

@aecurrie
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aecurrie commented Jan 17, 2024 via email

@jawache
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jawache commented Jan 17, 2024

I think the general approach should be something like this.

We identify the materials someone should have to read and absorb before taking this exam, your book of course, but there are others now, and materials on cloud websites and many other places. Understanding cloud dashboards etc... What's the reading list?

Decide from that union of information, what people should know, the exercise might also surface gaps.

From that raw body of data work with that consultant to generate an exam.

So "we" decide what you have to read and maybe at a high level what concept and ideas you need to fully grok.

The consultant decides the questions to ask to make sure someone has read and absorbed it all.

Something like that I'm thinking. We are the experts in green software, others are experts in crafting exams.

@aecurrie
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aecurrie commented Jan 17, 2024 via email

@aecurrie
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aecurrie commented Jan 17, 2024 via email

@navveenb
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I think the general approach should be something like this.

We identify the materials someone should have to read and absorb before taking this exam, your book of course, but there are others now, and materials on cloud websites and many other places. Understanding cloud dashboards etc... What's the reading list?

Decide from that union of information, what people should know, the exercise might also surface gaps.

From that raw body of data work with that consultant to generate an exam.

So "we" decide what you have to read and maybe at a high level what concept and ideas you need to fully grok.

The consultant decides the questions to ask to make sure someone has read and absorbed it all.

Something like that I'm thinking. We are the experts in green software, others are experts in crafting exams.

Sounds good. The first thing is to create the Topics that we want to cover as part of the course, followed by the contents and then the exam.

@swapnilguptaTW
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IMHO, we can leverage the Topics from the existing certification. They looked pretty exhaustive. What felt missing to me was some problem statements in form of case studies or use cases, while we are assessing the participants. This will make sure that the participant who has completed the certification not only has the general/deep understanding of the topic but also has the expertise to provide green solution for an existing problem.

@navveenb
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existing certification

Thanks, @swapnilguptaTW. Can you please point me to the existing certification on this subject. I am not aware of it. Are you referring to the existing Green Software Foundation training and certification.

@swapnilguptaTW
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Yes, I am referring to the same.

@russelltrow russelltrow changed the title [Project] Certified Green Cloud Engineer Exam [Project Proposal] Certified Green Cloud Engineer Exam Apr 3, 2024
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@russelltrow
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Hey @jawache this project was discussed in today's Community Working Group call and the Chairs would like to see it move from a CWG to a GSF Executive led initiative. The view is that this is an important project but the CWG lacks the volunteer capacity to move it forward.

What would be required to convert this to an Executive initiative?

cc: @aecurrie @PindyBhullar

@jawache
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jawache commented Jun 7, 2024

@russelltrow @aecurrie @PindyBhullar we can move it to an executive project (I think in general it makes sense), I believe @camcash17 was the original lead but we never managed to get it off the ground due to our open questions about the LF exam platform we've only just resolved, utilmately if you all agree, that's all we need to make it move to exec.

But I'd like to make clear this doesn't mean we have people on staff who are (a) free (b) qualified to define an exam like this :) ultimately this will need to be guided by others but perhaps there are ways to structure an approach which makes that easier. This project requires for us to have a platform where we can give exams so that's a prerequisite to all of the below.

But an approach that I think might work is to:

  • Hiring someone to help craft the exam but that person won't know a thing about green software and most likely cloud.
  • Identify the set of people who could best inform what the exam should cover, I think everyone who has meaningfully written advice in this space (@aecurrie, Sara, Sarah but also perhaps the professors who have created courses in their universities on this topic, the specific people in the clouds who created content like the sustainability well architected guides in AWS/Azure).
  • Some sort of initial workshop to get in paper what the goals are.
  • The exam person would go and start creating the exam but very importantly we need a process where what they create goes through the set of experts and they can provide feedback.

@aecurrie
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aecurrie commented Jun 7, 2024 via email

@aecurrie
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aecurrie commented Jun 12, 2024 via email

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@jawache @russelltrow @aecurrie @adamj89 @camcash17 @tmcclell @swapnilguptaTW @navveenb