Not long ago, The Green Grid, (thegreengrid.org) a non-profit consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems, pronounced that its technical committee has completed three key deliverables.

In the first paper, "Qualitative Analysis of Power Distribution Configurations for Data Centers," The Green Grid identifies seven high-level configurations for power distribution in the data center and is one of the first to consolidate the advantages and disadvantages of each of these power distribution configurations.

"Existing Data Center Energy Efficiency Metrics" is the industry's first consolidated look at all existing organizations and metrics that are focused on energy efficiency in data centers and related IT equipment. And the updated version of the "Data Center Efficiency Metrics White Paper" refines the metrics first introduced by The Green Grid in February 2007 by more explicitly highlighting infrastructure efficiency, said the organization. The Green Grid expects the power usage effectiveness and data center efficiency metrics to be adopted by the industry and that, moving forward, all data centers will track and report their efficiencies using these metrics.

"The technical committee of The Green Grid has been aggressively researching and developing key deliverables designed to bring focus to the industry around ways to improve energy efficiency in the data center," said Rick Schuckle, director of The Green Grid. "The research we're making available to members today highlights our emphasis on first evaluating and then improving upon best practices in today's global data center environments."

Now at 102 members, The Green Grid also reiterated its intention to develop an industry standard rating system for data centers, a goal adopted by the organization earlier this year.