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Beyond Response Time: Investigating the Power Behavior of Performance Antipatterns

Authors Alessandro Aneggi , Vincenzo Stoico , Andrea Janes

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Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Software and its engineering → Software design tradeoffs
  • Software and its engineering → Software design techniques
Keywords
  • performance antipatterns
  • microservices
  • power consumption
  • energy consumption
  • energy efficiency

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Abstract

Background. Performance antipatterns are well known for degrading the responsiveness of microservice-based systems. However, although their impact on latency has been widely studied, their relationship with energy consumption remains largely unexplored. 

Aims. This study empirically investigates whether ten widely recognized performance antipatterns, as defined by Smith and Williams, affect power consumption and energy-related behavior in containerized environments. 

Method. We implemented ten antipatterns as isolated containerized services and evaluated them under controlled load conditions. For each antipattern, we conducted 30 repeated runs and collected measurements of response time, CPU and DRAM power consumption, and resource utilization. 

Results. While all injected antipatterns degraded performance as expected, only a subset showed a statistically significant positive relationship between increased response time and higher power consumption. Some antipatterns exhibited a clear association between performance degradation and increased power demand. In contrast, others reached CPU saturation early, such that power draw remained nearly constant despite rising response times. In these cases, additional slowdowns primarily increased total execution time rather than instantaneous power demand. 

Conclusions. Performance antipatterns do not affect power and energy-related behavior uniformly. This study provides a systematic foundation for characterizing how different performance flaws are associated with power and energy-related behavior, offering actionable insights for architects aiming to design more energy-aware software systems.

Cite As Get BibTex

Alessandro Aneggi, Vincenzo Stoico, and Andrea Janes. Beyond Response Time: Investigating the Power Behavior of Performance Antipatterns. In 20th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 394, pp. 30:1-30:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESEM.2026.30

Author Details

Alessandro Aneggi
  • Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy
Vincenzo Stoico
  • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Andrea Janes
  • Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy

Supplementary Materials

References

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