In late 2006, the editorial staff at SearchDataCenter.com invited vendors and users to nominate their choices for the best data center products of 2006. To be eligible for consideration, products had to have been introduced or upgraded between October 31, 2005 and November 1, 2006. The categories included:

• Data center cooling
• Servers
• Data center backup power
• Systems management tools.

SearchDataCenter.com's independent experts judged the entries based on the following criteria:

• Innovation
• Performance
• Ease of integration into environment
• Ease of use and manageability
• Functionality
• Value

Judges based their decisions on the information provided in forms submitted by those nominating respective products; and on their own independent research.