Industry giants AMD, HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems have banded together to form the Green Grid, an association of IT professionals seeking to lower the overall consumption of power in data centres around the globe.

The Green Grid will function as an interactive body of members to share best practice in data centre power management, the companies said.

Green Grid members can participate by interacting online, sharing best practice and success stories, meeting annually, and lobbying the IT industry for better power-saving solutions.

Sun, AMD and others met with representatives of the US Environmental Protection Agency and Lawrence Berkeley Labs earlier this week to define a standard metric to measure energy efficiency in server technology.

Similar to the miles per gallon metric used by many in their decision to purchase a car, this metric will enable those purchasing servers to evaluate energy consumption in a standardised way for the first time.

Without a metric that allows for equitable equipment comparisons, manufacturers cannot compete on a level playing field, according to Sun, which is not good for customers or the environment.

The proposed metric will enable IT purchasers to conduct side-by-side, industry standard comparisons for energy efficiency in servers, similar to benchmark measurements such as SPEC and TPC widely used today to evaluate system speed and processing power.

The formal metric resulting from the conversations is expected to be made public this summer.