IBM announced earlier this week availability of a first-of-its-kind college degree in green data center management. The two-year associate degree is offered at the Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Neb., and offers course work designed to give students technical and business skills for careers in design and management of energy efficient data centers, according to an IBM statement.

The courses are taught using IBM hardware the college leased from the supplier and installed at the campus data center, IBM Spokeswoman Jennifer Clemente said. MCC instructors will be teaching the courses, using materials IBM provides as part of its Academic Initiative program.

The degree requires 104 hours of course work, including general education courses, said MCC Dean of IT and e-learning Tom Pensabene. Of those 104 hours, 36 hours are profession-specific and students with prior secondary education that satisfies the school's general education requirements can omit the rest. Courses can be taken on a part-time basis, requiring attendance for 4.5 hours per week.

"The IBM Academic Initiative works with over 100 colleges and universities around the world on green IT projects," Clemente said. The MCC associate degree, however, is the first actual data center degree program. MCC started the program because they observed a need in the Omaha area, since many companies have been moving data centers there, she explained. The college funded part of the program by a grant it received from the U.S.National Science Foundation.

"We're definitely interested in any other school that wants to take advantage of public funding to lease some of this data center equipment." IBM equipment deployed at the MCC data center includes the company's Power System servers, running AIX, IBM i and Linux environments.

While leasing hardware out to schools, IBM provides free access to online training resources to institutions through the Academic Initiative.

Another green IT project under the initiative is the company's collaboration with Victoria University in Australia to consolidate the school's two existing data centers into one energy efficient facility. IBM is also working with two American universities and a U.K. business school to develop an educational 3D video game - called INNOV8 - whose objective is to reduce a virtual organization's carbon footprint.