In Depth

In Depth

Converged infrastructure

• Icelandic datacentres may lead the way to green IT

  Iceland may soon become even more attractive to companies wanting to minimise their carbon footprint while using high-performance computing services  Continue Reading

• Unified file and object storage: Three suppliers and their approaches

  We look at unified file and object storage products from NetApp, Pure Storage and Scality, the differences, the workloads aimed at, and how unified they actually are  Continue Reading

• The role of infrastructure as code in edge datacentre computing

  As datacentre computing is pushed to the edge of the organisation’s network, IT has to address the overheads associated with remote server management  Continue Reading

• Software firm saves storage array costs with Nutanix hyper-converged

  Banking SaaS provider Vialink needed more IOPS when its NetApp arrays slowed up, but Nutanix hyper-converged proved a better package than Pure Storage and Dell EMC, too  Continue Reading

• Hybrid cloud storage: Options for rearchitecting enterprise IT

  Hybrid cloud is seen as a way to have the best of both the on-premise and public cloud worlds. We look at the pros and cons of hybrid cloud storage  Continue Reading

• Dispelling the top five myths of modern infrastructure

  Modern infrastructure is agile, flexible and scalable. It is at the forefront of every CIO’s digital strategy – and it's everywhere. But with the multitude of choices comes complexity  Continue Reading

• How can enterprises avoid datacentre supply chain issues affecting IT upgrades?

  With analysts predicting that the current datacentre component shortages could last for at least two years, CIOs are being advised to act now to prevent the situation affecting their IT upgrade plans  Continue Reading

• Five ways the hyper-converged infrastructure market is changing

  We look at changes in the hyper-converged infrastructure market as suppliers go cool, go soft, disaggregate HCI nodes, provide as-a-service options and look to containers  Continue Reading

• APAC expert guide to storage management

  In this expert guide to storage management in Asia-Pacific, we unpack the developments shaping storage management and key strategies to extract business value from data  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

• Five reasons to look at hyper-converged infrastructure

  HCI promises easy setup, purchasing flexibility, low procurement and operation costs, reliability and all in one box – but there are challenges too  Continue Reading

• Ski firm dumps ‘motley’ storage for DataCore software-defined

  Eurogroup cuts power usage by 70% and rackspace from 84U to 7U as it consolidates multiple physical servers and storage protocols onto SANsymphony software-defined storage  Continue Reading

• NHS datacentre transformation projects continue apace during pandemic

  NHS trusts have continued to invest in their datacentre estates throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, but the nature of their upgrade projects continues to evolve  Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged infrastructure: Why software-defined everything might not work for all datacentres

  Choosing the right converged infrastructure in the first instance can pivot on a trade-off between security and agility requirements  Continue Reading

• Prioritising workloads in a hyper-converged infrastructure migration

  A cost-effective approach to combining virtualisation and unified management probably means deploying it workload by workload, experts suggest  Continue Reading

• Five hyper-converged infrastructure use cases to watch

  We look at workloads ripe for hyper-converged infrastructure deployment. These include virtual servers and desktops, SMEs/remote offices, Kubernetes, and analytics and machine learning  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

• Edge computing environments: what you need to know

  An edge case in business sits at the limits of what's viable, and edge computing requirements suggest a similar struggle  Continue Reading

• Lean, mean and green: The datacentres of the future

  Working out how to develop more efficient datacentres in an increasingly resource-hungry world is not easy, but it is possible  Continue Reading

• How AI and data analytics are driving composable infrastructure adoption in datacentres

  As enterprises continue to grapple with how to make sense of their big data stores, organisations are having to rethink how they kit out their datacentres, with composable infrastructure leading the way  Continue Reading

• Processors re-imagined: Will cloud and AI lead mean all change in the datacentre?

  We look at the changes cloud-native platforms and artificial intelligence could bring about in the datacentre.  Continue Reading

• McAfee’s push for secure cloud adoption

  Organisations must do more to secure their cloud environments as malicious actors increasingly focus their attention on exploiting cloud vulnerabilities, says McAfee  Continue Reading

• Log management: Helping IT admins to achieve infrastructure-wide visibility

  When properly configured and deployed, log management tools can unearth a veritable treasure trove of data that IT administrators can use to triage and diagnose problems in enterprise IT infrastructures  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

• The pitfalls of hyper-converged infrastructure and how to avoid them

  Hyper-converged infrastructure can be an easy win when it comes to datacentre infrastructure upgrades, but there are pitfalls. We discuss how best you can sidestep them  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

• Exploring UCaaS: The main benefits for enterprises

  Getting unified communications-as-a-service right can mean more agility, higher productivity, and cost control  Continue Reading

• How to avoid a hyper-convergence minefield

  How firms can implement hyper-converged infrastructure to make cost and performance savings  Continue Reading

• What are the SD-WAN requirements for a multicloud environment?

  SD-WAN is becoming an important option for businesses migrating branch and other edge communications to the cloud. But what makes a successful deployment?  Continue Reading

• The pitfalls of multicloud network management

  Migrating to and managing a multicloud network introduces new complexities into the network. We look at how to avoid the potential pitfalls  Continue Reading

• Casting the net for a software-defined future

  The practical and cultural challenges of enterprises transforming to software-defined networking  Continue Reading

• Securing the SD-WAN: The next network challenge

  Every time an enterprise weighs up whether or not to try SD-WAN, security is an essential part of the picture  Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged backup appliances bring flexibility benefits

  Backup appliances in scale-out format allow data protection to be scaled easily by simply adding extra nodes. But is it an idea that’s ready for the enterprise?  Continue Reading

• Cloud HCI survey: Cloud functionality in hyper-converged infrastructure

  We look at how you can use hyper-converged infrastructure to build private clouds and link up with public cloud services to develop hybrid and multi-cloud working  Continue Reading

• Need for speed: designing a modern campus LAN

  Just like datacentres before them, campus LANs are increasingly being defined by virtualisation and software-based controls. Next to this shift, the hardware also continues to improve as network owners look to keep pace with user demand  Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged infrastructure 2018 technology and market survey

  We look at the latest in hyper-converged infrastructure – server and storage hardware nodes that can be built into scale-out clusters – and the players in the market  Continue Reading

• Net gain? Why networks matter when it comes to hyper-convergence

  The rise of hyper-convergence is radically changing how enterprises manage their IT estates, but its effect on the network has yet to be fully realised  Continue Reading

• OpenStack vs hyper-converged: Open-source cloud in the datacentre

  We look at how to deploy OpenStack on hyper-converged infrastructure and how HCI suppliers’ products can support deployment of the open-source cloud in the datacentre  Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged choices: DIY HCI software deployments

  What are the advantages of do-it-yourself hyper-converged infrastructure deployment and who are the key suppliers of HCI software? We run the rule over the DIY hyper-converged market  Continue Reading

• Datacentre decisions: Converged vs hyper-converged infrastructure

  Converged and hyper-converged infrastructure are ready-tested ways to put compute and storage into the datacentre. But which should you choose for your deployment?  Continue Reading

• Converged stacks: What they are and the benefits they bring

  We survey the converged stacks market: Servers, storage and networking in pre-configured product bundles for specific virtualisation and application use cases.  Continue Reading

• Telephony and business join in unified communications

  Unified communications: Converged voice, data and video infrastructure services that integrate with business applications can help boost enterprise productivity  Continue Reading

• Converged networks: The VoIP revolution

  As the amount of voice traffic carried over the internet increases, Arif Mohamed investigates the pros and cons of moving voice and data networks to one converged network  Continue Reading

• Cisco's converged network vision has bandwidth for next 20 years

  Cisco's Carrier Routing System (CRS-1) is the company's attempt at building a network infrastructure that will allow voice, data...  Continue Reading