Are we alone in the universe? Could life exist on other planets? Questions like these have inspired countless science fiction stories, but at the University of Exeter's Astrophysics department, these queries are at the forefront of research. The department is using a range of supercomputers coupled with its own bespoke open source software to study how stars and planets are formed.
Although it started life as a back-office support function, the datacentre has transformed from a "glorified computerised filing cabinet" (in many people's eyes) to a major consumer of resources. The big question now is how to rationalise it. There are several business and technical options.
Datacentre managers face a growing dilemma as businesses put pressure on them to deliver more computing power while also asking them to reduce rising IT energy costs, the British Computer Society has said.
The processing power of grid computing will be used by University College London (UCL) this year to develop treatments that could be more effective in the treatment of people with HIV.
IBM has brought together its I-series and P-series servers into one family, called Power System, designed to support 15,000 applications for Linux and i5/OS.