In Depth

In Depth

Clustering for high availability and HPC

• Sharp end of the edge: Managing micro-datacentres in a shared environment

  Ongoing diversification in datacentre types gives rise to management challenges for operators, prompting a rethink about how they run their sites  Continue Reading

• Evolving datacentre chipsets put cooling, power and software management techniques under microscope

  New processor designs that could revolutionise approaches to supporting higher power densities at the rack still look years away, it appears  Continue Reading

• Could Iceland be the best place in the world for high-performance computing?

  Most of Iceland’s cheap, sustainable energy is currently used by aluminium smelters, but recognising the need to diversify, the Landsvirkjun power company now promotes other uses  Continue Reading

• How the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium sequenced Sars-Cov-2

  Consortium of universities and other institutions has harnessed datasets, analytics and cloud computing to sequence Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, in a blisteringly short time  Continue Reading

• With connectivity on the rise, Africa is a hotspot for datacentre investments

  We look at opportunities for datacentre operators in setting up or partnering with local firms in Africa  Continue Reading

• How long until cloud becomes the preferred environment to run HPC workloads?

  The high-performance computing market is growing, but enterprises that have already made large investments in on-premise HPC will need to weigh up whether a move to the cloud would be worth their while  Continue Reading

• Brain researchers get NVMe-over-RoCE for super-fast HPC storage

  French neurological researchers deploy Western Digital OpenFlex NVMe array for super-fast HPC storage with Ethernet-based NVMe-over-Fabrics connectivity across several floors  Continue Reading

• Intel Optane Persistent Memory aims to fill the gap DRAM can’t

  We look at Optane and its PMem product that Intel believes will fill a big gap between memory and storage that DRAM technology just cannot deal with  Continue Reading

• Blockchain: hype vs reality

  Blockchain technology presents a number of complex challenges that must be overcome before it can truly deliver on its promises  Continue Reading

• Evolution in action: How datacentre hardware is moving to meet tomorrow’s tech challenges

  The datacentre industry is in a state of flux, as new and emerging tech trends highlight hardware and performance shortcomings in legacy sites, prompting operators to rethink how they kit out their facilities  Continue Reading

• Evolution in action: The changing face of the datacentre

  The role datacentres play in the wider enterprise IT landscape is changing, fuelling the demand for a mix of different types of facilities that are capable of meeting the growing variety of enterprise data-processing requirements  Continue Reading

• AI storage: Machine learning, deep learning and storage needs

  Artificial intelligence workloads impact storage, with NVMe flash needed for GPU processing at the highest levels of performance – and there are other choices right through the AI data lifecycle  Continue Reading

• Enterprise HPC: Why HPE is buying Cray

  HPE’s decision to acquire supercomputing pioneer Cray for $1.3bn serves to highlight the growing importance of high-performance computing (HPC) deployments in the enterprise market  Continue Reading

• Enterprise accessibility: How Cray is using HPC to open up AI use cases from the datacentre

  Enterprises interest in HPC is reportedly being fuelled by the rising demand for artificial intelligence-based applications and services, and Cray is one of a number of providers looking to cash in  Continue Reading

• Are gas-powered datacentres all hype and hot air?

  As concerns about how the proliferation of datacentres will affect electricity supplies continue to be raised, some are experimenting with natural gas as an alternative energy source. But is it a viable, long-term solution?  Continue Reading

• Staffordshire University goes all-in on Microsoft Azure for digital transformation

  Andrew Proctor, director of digital services at Staffordshire University, describes how ditching its datacentres and moving to the Microsoft Azure public cloud has set the organisation on the path to digital transformation  Continue Reading

• The Sanger Institute on using datacentre upgrades to help decode the human genome

  Paul Woobey, IT director at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, tells Computer Weekly why the organisation's HPC workload requirements cannot be fulfilled by a move to the cloud  Continue Reading

• Linux versus Unix hot patching

  We examine the current state of play in the ongoing competition between the Linux and Unix server operating systems  Continue Reading

• On-premise IT still the only way to run certain tasks

  How to augment a public cloud strategy with on-premise IT by running workloads in a private cloud and bursting to the public cloud  Continue Reading

• Why more people aren’t cloud bursting

  The appeal of cloud bursting is easy to see, but the level of complexity involved negates its benefits – at least for now  Continue Reading

• The pros and cons of cloud bursting

  The much-vaunted benefits of cloud computing can be overshadowed by portability and interoperability issues  Continue Reading

• Modular datacentre helps Belgian IT firm support Dutch and German customers

  Cegeka commissioned a new datacentre when its customer base expanded and decided on a modular approach to get it up and running quickly  Continue Reading

• Virtualisation and storage: Five ways to do it better

  Server and desktop virtualisation bring many savings, but you have to work smart to ensure storage performs efficiently. We survey the top five pitfalls and how to avoid them  Continue Reading

• Cloud boosts demand for datacentres in Poland and eastern Europe

  The datacentre market in both central and eastern Europe and Poland has recorded double–digit growth  Continue Reading

• Why does Amazon still dominate the cloud world?

  Amazon has long been the gold standard for public cloud but its array of support and services suggests a market-leading maturity  Continue Reading

• Managing workloads in an era of changing datacentre architecture

  Different workloads require different basic resources and hybrid cloud needs more intelligent workload management  Continue Reading

• What's causing Poland's datacentre market to flourish?

  The Polish datacentre market, although still in its early phases of development, is worth more than 1bn Polish zloty  Continue Reading

• Cloud, frozen pizza model and the immutable infrastructure

  The architecture pattern for immutable infrastructure is based on the made-to-order pizza model  Continue Reading

• How cloud companies are engaging in price wars

  Cloud prices are coming down, which is great news for organisations taking their first steps into using public cloud services  Continue Reading

• Demystifying Kubernetes: the tool to manage Google-scale workloads in the cloud

  We are witnessing a new technology wave in the form of immutable infrastructure and micro-services  Continue Reading

• Intel is making waves in the growing microserver market

  Analysts predict the microserver market will account for more than 10% of the server market by 2016. But what progress is x86 heavyweight Intel making in the field  Continue Reading

• The internet of things is coming: Is your datacentre ready?

  Gartner estimates the IoT will see 26 billion units installed by 2020 – channelling huge volumes of data traffic into datacentres  Continue Reading

• Poland’s financial services sector weighs cloud’s risks and rewards

  Banks and financial services enterprises in Poland are split between strict regulations and security concerns, and cloud’s benefits  Continue Reading

• How to tame the new IT beast called DevOps

  Making your company cloud and 'software-defined' ready requires you to embrace DevOps - but make sure your DevOps strategy isn't undermined  Continue Reading

• Harnessing the power of cloud with VMware vCloud Automation Center (vCAC)

  Firms planning an SDDC strategy need a tool to manage, automate and orchestrate their IT - such as VMware vCloud Automation Centre  Continue Reading

• Enterprises, scientists and academics turn to public cloud for HPC

  Organisations are starting to use supercomputers on demand via public cloud to access HPC capabilities  Continue Reading

• Micro-datacentre: What IT problems it solves and what workload systems suit it

  A micro-datacentre is a smaller containerised datacentre system designed to solve different problems or to handle different workloads  Continue Reading

• Will silicon photonics replace copper cabling in mainstream datacentres?

  Silicon photonics can increase bandwidth in servers, improve data transfer speeds and reduce complexity. But are datacentres ready for it?  Continue Reading

• Future of in-house datacentres in the cloud era

  It is predicted that companies will spend three times more on the cloud by 2017. But as cloud goes mainstream, are in-house datacentres really dying?  Continue Reading

• CIO Interview: Chris Birch, IT Director, News UK

  Chris Birch, News UK's IT director talks about how the company adopted a cloud-first strategy to support business innovation  Continue Reading

• Get datacentre cooling under control

  Reviewing existing datacentre cooling designs and exploring new ones for efficiency may not be as hard as you think. Here's how  Continue Reading

• Can telcos tap into the datacentre business?

  Telcos have always run datacentres, but now many are hoping to give commercial providers a run for their money  Continue Reading

• BAFTA nominates cloud to boost web performance

  Arts organisation moves to Rackspace to handle awards-season peaks and help meet the ever-growing demand for rich media content  Continue Reading

• Blackrock: measuring risk in a datacentre

  How the investment giant handles the risk of managing $13 trillion of other people’s money  Continue Reading

• Human factors in the datacentre

  Whether to ensure business continuity or maximise returns, everyone from the finance director to the facilities manager needs further datacentre education  Continue Reading

• The UK’s problem with power

  Datacentre power buyers say Britain’s deregulated energy market is as complex as trading in derivatives  Continue Reading

• Get ready for the datacentre storm

  With a wave of innovations rolling ever faster towards the datacentre, analysts say 2014 is the year organisations must plot their course through choppy waters  Continue Reading

• Make a high-performance computing and high-availability datacentre

  High performance computing and high availability systems are no longer limited to engineers and scientists. But is your datacentre ready?  Continue Reading

• How Capgemini keeps its Merlin datacentre green and energy-efficient

  Capgemini's Swindon-based Merlin datacentre is one of the most energy-efficient in the world. But what makes it green?  Continue Reading

• How to make your datacentre BYOD-ready

  BYOD is changing how employees interact with corporate data. Datacentre managers should follow these steps to prepare their infrastructure for BYOD  Continue Reading

• Public sector IT procurement, G-Cloud and the SMEs

  Is the government's intent to widen public sector IT procurement to include SMEs and its G-Cloud diktat improving SME-government engagement?  Continue Reading

• The battle for the cloud

  Pure cloud providers have changed the game and traditional mega-suppliers must fight to keep up.  Continue Reading

• How to plan and manage datacentre redundancy

  Provisioning of a datacentre to survive a range of failure scenarios has become critical for many businesses. Here's a datacentre redundancy plan  Continue Reading

• Cloud gold rush: Is it all just supplier noise?

  IT providers are unveiling cloud services at lightning speed and are launching robust price wars. But are enterprise customers equally gung-ho in adoption?  Continue Reading

• Oh dear, our datacentre provider has gone bust

  Ensure that you enter into a sensible contract with your datacentre provider and factor in all possibilities including them going bust  Continue Reading

• How to effectively manage datacentre temperature and humidity

  A datacentre is a complex facility with different cooling equipment and power systems. Here's how to monitor its temperature and humidity  Continue Reading

• Amazon: Gold standard of the cloud?

  Amazon Web Services is the benchmark for cloud in the enterprise but can it handle the challenge of federated cloud services?  Continue Reading

• Identifying truths and myths of datacentre efficiency

  There is no one-size-fits-all solution to optimising datacentre efficiency, so CIOs should consider all available options. Archana Venkatraman reports  Continue Reading