In Depth

In Depth

Datacentre disaster recovery and security

• Datacentre energy efficiency: Is the time now for a big switch-off?

  The clock is ticking on sustainable IT and energy use, and much more can be done to save energy, power and reduce emissions at a datacentre level. So why isn’t it happening?  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

• Getting physical with datacentre security

  Whether it is natural disasters, terrorism or break-ins, datacentres will be vulnerable to a range of risks unless they are physically secured. Here’s how you can improve the physical security of your datacentre  Continue Reading

• How to apply zero-trust models to container security

  Containers have become a common fixture in software development, but they have resulted in new concerns for security teams. Is zero-trust the answer to tackling them?  Continue Reading

• The Billion-Year Archive project: A post-apocalyptic disaster recovery plan

  The Arch Mission Foundation’s Nova Spivack opens up about its Billion-Year Archive project, which aims to provide the Earth with an apocalypse-level disaster recovery plan  Continue Reading

• Coronavirus: Hardening up datacentre equipment supply chains post-Covid-19

  Fears about hardware shortages, staff absenteeism and how to keep sites up and running with social distancing have dogged the datacentre sector since the start of the pandemic, so how is the sector faring?  Continue Reading

• Malaysia’s business continuity planning readiness a mixed bag

  Larger Malaysian enterprises have BCP in place, but SMEs lag behind and will find it harder to weather the Covid-19 storm  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

• The AWS bucket list: Keep your cloud secure

  Misconfigured cloud installations risk billions of records being exposed, damaging organisations’ finances and reputations. Paying attention to securing AWS storage buckets is a simple matter  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

• Mixing it up: Cloud and datacentre in the new world of IT

  Cloud computing has long been tipped as the technology that will displace enterprise datacentres in CIOs’ affections, but that is not quite how the story is playing out  Continue Reading

• Five ways that backup has changed since the days of tape

  Back in the day, all this was tape, but times have changed, with cloud-to-cloud backup, cloud storage, virtual and physical backup appliances and myriad endpoint hardware  Continue Reading

• Five essential steps to a sound disaster recovery plan

  We walk through the key steps to develop a disaster recovery plan – from risk assessment and setting recovery objectives, to the plan itself and a testing regime to keep it fresh  Continue Reading

• SME disaster recovery made easy with cloud, hybrid and HCI

  Disaster recovery is a lot easier for small businesses than it used to be, with use of the cloud, hybrid cloud, physical and virtual appliances, and hyper-converged infrastructure all among the choices on offer  Continue Reading

• Locking down the datacentre: A security checklist for IT administrators

  As datacentres become increasingy decentralised and the security threats they face increase in number and complexity, IT admins are at risk of becoming overwhelmed as they strive to keep on top of their server farm estates  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

• Uptime and availability: Making sense of supplier SLAs

  Enterprises need to read the fine print of supplier service-level agreements (SLA) or risk finding themselves caught short during downtime incidents  Continue Reading

• Protecting your digital assets: Why it pays to invest in cyber insurance

  Cyber insurance offers financial protection against the worst happening to a company’s data and digital assets, and is something few businesses can afford to be without  Continue Reading

• Blackout after Brexit: UK datacentres brace for post-EU power supply and cost changes

  As the uncertainty over how the UK intends to extricate itself from the European Union rumbles on, datacentre operators are weighing up how Brexit might affect the availability and cost of the power they need to run their facilities in future  Continue Reading

• Data protection, backup and replication in the age of the cloud

  A data protection and backup strategy has to take account of the expansion of the sphere of IT, from the datacentre to the public cloud to devices and locations at the edge  Continue Reading

• Intel Cascade Lake vs AMD Rome: Who will rule the datacentre roost in 2019?

  Intel and AMD are both making a renewed push into the enterprise datacentre market in 2019, with both set to release new processors. We take a look at what they have to offer  Continue Reading

• Mergers and acquisitions: Bringing together separate IT departments

  Bringing together the assets of two separate companies can be a fraught business, particularly when it comes to merging IT departments  Continue Reading

• Data recovery disasters: Kroll Ontrack on how it helps enterprises bounce back

  Data recovery expert Kroll Ontrack provides a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges enterprises and consumers face getting their files and information back when disaster strikes  Continue Reading

• DR 101: The disaster recovery plan and disaster recovery strategy

  We walk through the key steps and essential building blocks required to develop a disaster recovery strategy and how to write a disaster recovery plan  Continue Reading

• Cloud DR: Key choices in cloud disaster recovery

  Flexibility and low cost make the cloud well-suited to disaster recovery, but there is no one-size-fits-all route to cloud disaster recovery. We look at the key choices  Continue Reading

• The EURECA moment: Counting the cost of running the UK’s public sector datacentres

  The EU-backed EURECA project has spent the past 36 months assessing the state of public sector datacentres across Europe, and is revealing what it found  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

• VMware eyes cloud opportunity in APAC

  The company's top Asia-Pacific executive sheds light on how the virtualisation pioneer is tackling the region's diverse market in the cloud era  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

• Nando's technology director explains using cloud to digitally disrupt its own business

  Nando’s technology director, Richard Atkinson, describes how the restaurant chain is using cloud to get closer to its customers and build stronger ties with its 14,000-strong workforce  Continue Reading

• Backup testing: What to test, when to test, how often to test

  We run the rule over what’s involved in backup testing in virtual and physical server environments, how often you should test and the key pitfalls to avoid  Continue Reading

• Time to restore from backup: Do you know where your data is?

  Making a backup is only the start of the process. You must be sure you can restore, that backups contain what you need, and that they will work with the applications that need them  Continue Reading

• Datacentre security: Why operators must give cyber and physical threats equal attention

  Datacentre operators often talk up the physical security measures they have in place, but are they at risk of overlooking cyber threats?  Continue Reading

• Isle of Man: From seaside getaway to tech startup hub

  The Isle of Man government is stepping up efforts to position itself as the low-tax jurisdiction of choice for the startup community. But what's it like to do business there?  Continue Reading

• CW@50: The changing face of the datacentre over the past 50 years

  As Computer Weekly prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary, we take a look back at how the design and role of the datacentre has changed over the past five decades  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

• EU Data Protection Regulation: What the EC legislation means for cloud providers

  With the European Commission's data protection rules set to drop before 2016, take a look at what the changes mean for the cloud and datacentre community  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

• CW500: Dealing with disaster - how do companies cope?

  At some point businesses will need to invoke a disaster recovery plan, but does it cover everything the modern digital company needs?  Continue Reading

• Keeping European datacentres safe from cyber attacks

  European datacentre operators must take a proactive approach to preventing cyber attacks as hackers increasingly target their facilities  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

• How to make applications resilient on AWS

  Cloud services are susceptible to network and other outages. There is no silver bullet to boost the resilience of an AWS-hosted application  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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Optimising application performance with flash storage

  At a Computer Weekly roundtable, IT leaders heard how Cancer Research UK achieved a 30% improvement in application performance  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

• Best of VMworld Europe User Awards: Entry Criteria

  All the information you need to know for the VMworld Europe User Awards.  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

• How to monitor and improve the health of your datacentre

  Any datacentre manager looking to support the business should take an end-to-end systems management approach to keep the datacentre in shape  Continue Reading

• Sweating your datacentre’s IT assets - is it a good idea?

  Amid economic uncertainties, businesses want to get more from existing IT assets. But does it make sense from an IT point of view?  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

• How to move data and applications in the cloud

  IT must be prepared with a strategy to minimise the impact of the failure of their cloud or datacentre provider  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

• Public sector backup strategy: Easier than ever; harder than ever

  Public sector backup strategy is a complex beast that must operate in large and heterogenous IT environments.  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

• Is cloud data storage right for your organisation?

  Find out if cloud data storage is a serious option for you with this evaluation of its suitability for primary, nearline, backup and archive data  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

• Cloud computing questions for enterprises to consider

  The IT director at a sports marketing agency discusses what businesses must ask themselves when preparing for cloud computing, along with why the cloud failed to meet his expectations in terms of disaster recovery.  Continue Reading

• Best of VMworld Europe 2010 User Awards: Virtualisation for disaster recovery

  The best virtualisation for disaster recovery user project improved availability and enabled semiannual failover and failback tests.  Continue Reading

• Best of VMworld Europe 2010 User Awards: Winners slideshow

  Find out what user projects were voted to be the best in numerous cloud computing and virtualisation categories at VMworld Europe 2010.  Continue Reading

• Bird & Bird keeps IT flying high with Neverfail

  The infrastructure manager at international law firm Bird & Bird shares how he avoids downtime with Neverfail.  Continue Reading

• Improving business resilience and continuity planning through virtualisation

  An IT service provider explains why well-planned best practices and the increased efficiencies of virtualisation technologies make it so easy to plan ahead for a disaster.  Continue Reading

• Virtual disaster recovery: How to take advantage

  Virtual disaster recovery is now a reality, but how can IT professionals take advantage? Find out how to get your systems up and running without investing in additional hardware or remote sites.  Continue Reading