In an effort to help IT departments benchmark and improve energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact, IBM announced the Energy Efficiency Certificate (EEC) program in November 2007. In doing so, IBM became the first vendor to offer hardware that specifically qualifies for EEC projects out of the box. IBM is the first vendor to certify their servers for EEC project eligibility. System z mainframes and System p AIX machines are now eligible, and System i proprietary machines, System x X64-based machines, and storage arrays will be eligible later in 2008. Info-Tech predicts other vendors will quickly follow suit.

This announcement left many IT managers unsure of how EECs provide benefit. Read Info-Tech’s take to understand how EECs work and whether enterprises should pursue energy efficiency certification.