In Depth

In Depth

Datacentre cooling infrastructure

• Riskier business: How Brexit could be changing downtime risk and resilience in the datacentre

  As the UK enters the final quarter of its first year from the Brexit transition period, the risk picture for local datacentres remains unclear  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

• The second coming: The Nordic datacentre market comes of age

  As concerns mount about space and power constraints within several of Europe’s largest datacentre hubs, enterprises are being urged to consider shifting more of their energy-intensive workloads to the Nordic countries  Continue Reading

• APAC datacentres gear up for the future

  Datacentre operators in the Asia-Pacific region are dabbling in advanced power and cooling solutions, along with machine learning and edge computing, to keep pace with growing demand for their services  Continue Reading

• Dublin in distress: Power supply issues threaten growth of Europe’s second-biggest datacentre hub

  Dublin’s standing as Europe’s second-biggest datacentre hub could be on potentially shaky ground as Ireland’s electricity infrastructure creaks under the pressure of so many power-hungry server farms plugging into the national grid  Continue Reading

• Nautilus Data Technologies CEO on building waterborne datacentres in the name of sustainability

  James Connaughton, CEO of waterborne datacentre design champion Nautilus Data Technologies, sets out why the firm is convinced that water-cooled facilities are the answer to the tech industry’s sustainability woes  Continue Reading

• The National Security and Investment Act: What datacentre operators and investors need to know

  The incoming National Security and Investment Act will give the UK government enhanced powers to pre-screen and intervene on datacentre M&A deals, prompting concerns it could dampen the sector's soaraway growth rates  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

• The end is nigh: Are datacentre operators prepared for a potential no-deal Brexit?

  Datacentre operations are resilient and forward-thinking by nature, yet pitfalls and cost impacts are looming large with a potential no-deal Brexit on the horizon  Continue Reading

• How intelligent workload management tools can help IT admins cut through cloud complexity

  IT administrators have to manage an increasingly complex and varied range of application types and IT environments, and intelligent workload management tools offer a helping hand with that  Continue Reading

• The datacentre chill-factor: Finding the right conditions

  Computer Weekly explores a variety of cost-effective, energy-efficient services currently using innovative methods to keep datacentres cool  Continue Reading

• Datacentre liquid cooling: What needs to happen for it to become commonplace in colocation?

  As demand for increasingly dense racks and compute-heavy workloads increases within datacentres, could this lead to a wholesale shift in preference from air-to-liquid-based cooling systems? If so, at what cost to the environment?  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

• Datacentres operators must move away from diesel backup generators to give back to grid

  While the diesel backup generators used by datacentre operators have a limited environmental impact, using them for extended periods of time to power sites to feed energy back into the grid is not a sustainable solution to growing electricity demand  Continue Reading

• Driving adoption: Are high costs putting public cloud out of reach to non-profits?

  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s insights into the sky-high cloud bills faced by some non-profit organisations prompts questions about whether the public cloud giants should do more to make their services more accessible to the third sector  Continue Reading

• From consumer to prosumer: Reducing the datacentre industry’s reliance on the national grid

  With the government ramping up plans to go net zero on carbon emissions by 2050, where does the datacentre industry stand – and how can it become more sustainable over the coming years?  Continue Reading

• Unpicking the datacentre industry’s complicated relationship with climate change

  The energy usage habits of datacentres often see the sector labelled as a contributor to climate change, but the situation is far more nuanced than that, it seems  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: 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

• 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

• Datacentre cooling upgrades: Helping operators decide where best to invest

  Upgrading a datacentre cooling system is an expensive undertaking, but should operators stick with what they've always done or try something new?  Continue Reading

• Datacentre heat reuse: Why aren’t more operators doing it?

  With the datacentre industry’s sustainability habits coming under increasingly close scrutiny, we find out why operators are not rushing to reuse their waste heat  Continue Reading

• Microsoft’s underwater datacentre: The pros and cons of running subsea facilities

  Underwater datacentres can help providers save on land costs and cooling, but at what cost to the environment?  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

• Top 10 datacentre stories of 2015

  Computer Weekly's top 10 datacentre stories and trend pieces of 2015  Continue Reading

• How Verne Global tackled the Icelandic datacentre connectivity gap

  The wide availability of renewable energy has made Iceland an attractive location for datacentre operators, increasing demand for global network connections to the country  Continue Reading

• Datacentre PUE: Who's keeping score?

  With datacentre operators under increased competitive pressure to cut their PUE scores, are their ratings really all they seem?  Continue Reading

• Energy-efficient Europe: How the datacentre sector is keeping it clean

  With users becoming increasingly savvy about environmental issues, we take a look at how the datacentre sector is responding  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

• Co-location services and datacentres feel the CCA heat

  A climate change agreement (CCA) for datacentres has come into force. How will its energy-efficiency rewards shape the industry?  Continue Reading

• Green storage is dead. Long live green storage

  Green storage may have slipped from the headlines, but the need for better energy efficiency in storage is more pressing than ever  Continue Reading

• Distributed power generation – Is it right for your datacentre energy strategy?

  As datacentre complexity grows, enterprises seek greener ways to power them. But is distributed generation right for all?  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

• How the datacentre market has evolved in 12 months

  The increasing interest in co-location, hosting and cloud has led to murmurings around the death of in-house datacentres  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 be a front runner in the shift towards datacentre commoditisation

  Companies will need a responsive, flexible datacentre able to deliver greater competitive edge and the IT horsepower to support it  Continue Reading

• What's on an enterprise's checklist when seeking a datacentre provider?

  Is it energy efficiency? Is low cost or low latency the deal maker? Top enterprises disclose their checklists for datacentre providers  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

• Configure datacentres with green tech to save costs

  The current driver for green technology is to save money through optimising energy use, rather than a desire to be seen to be green.  Continue Reading

• Top technologies that can make your datacentre green

  Energy-efficient technologies that can reduce running costs in the datacentre and across the business  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

• Six datacentre resolutions IT must make and stick to in 2013

  IT executives must put the datacentre where it needs to be – at the heart of the business – with these new year's resolutions  Continue Reading

• How to minimise costs when overhauling a datacentre

  Virtualisation and cloud technologies are pushing IT to take a revolutionary and replacement approach to datacentres. How can it be done efficiently?  Continue Reading

• Combining DCIM and BIM tools for effective datacentre management

  If datacentre IT equipment and datacentre building was combined, the building and cooling could be tailored to increase efficiency  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

• Is wind energy just blowing in the face of datacentre cooling reality?

  Using renewable energy such as wind energy for datacentre cooling may not address issues of carbon emissions as directly as suppliers claim  Continue Reading

• How IBM researchers hope to change the world

  IBM's Zurich research labs opened its doors to reveal some of the technologies we can expect to be using in 10 to 15 years  Continue Reading

• Top five virtualisation case studies of 2011

  Our recap of 2011's most popular case studies shows how other IT users conducted their virtualisation projects and all about their challenges and the efficiencies they achieved.  Continue Reading

• The data centre boom: Finding the right site just got serious

  Our expert poses some basic, but important, tests of potential data centre sites, including location, connectivity and power, that companies should be aware of.  Continue Reading

• The real value of virtualisation

  Discover how to fully realise the benefits and cost savings of virtualisation, including the importance of maximising energy efficiency and meeting IT project deadlines.  Continue Reading

• CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme: How to be on track with I/O virtualisation

  The launch of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme means that companies are liable for their carbon output. How should data centres respond? I/O virtualisation is one solution.  Continue Reading

• Improving data centre power consumption and efficiency

  Following the opening of hosting provider PEER 1's new data centre in Toronto, the VP of data centre operations offers advice on why tackling energy issues should be a top priority in data centre planning.  Continue Reading

• How to save money by saving energy

  A data centre expert explains the importance of building a green data centre and how to measure power usage efficiency.  Continue Reading