EPA Releases Energy Star for Servers; A good First Step, but More Work Is Needed

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released the 1.0 version of the Energy Star for Servers specification. This first release only covers standalone servers with one to four processor sockets; it does not yet cover servers with more than four processor sockets, or blade servers of any size. Three criteria are being weighted by the specification: power supply efficiency, virtualization functionality, and energy-efficiency benchmarks and standards for measuring and reporting energy use.