In Depth
In Depth
Datacentre performance troubleshooting, monitoring and optimisation
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Levelling the playing field: Could a UK cloud strategy weaken the hold of the hyperscalers?
Over time, global hyperscale has taken a majority share of the UK market. How best could the government respond to Ofcom’s review to sustain local industry while best serving customers? Continue Reading
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Waste not, want not: How datacentre heat reuse projects can power ahead
The Nordics, Netherlands, Germany and Canada are progressing district heating initiatives that save energy and emissions, although obstacles remain Continue Reading
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Closing the datacentre skills gap by tapping up career changers
Recruitment efforts commonly focus on relatively new graduates, potentially ignoring harder-to-reach segments, such as people looking for a career change or returning to the workforce after time away Continue Reading
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Toyota car plant outage shows database capacity planning is vital
How could database deletes and re-organisation take out car production for 36 hours at 14 plants? We drill down into the details of database capacity planning Continue Reading
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CXL in the datacentre: Boosting memory for hungry workloads
We look at CXL, how it revolutionises connectivity between memory components, potentially saves energy, and adds oomph to heavily memory-dependent workloads such as AI analytics Continue Reading
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Is the UK datacentre industry set for further consolidation?
Turbulent times make it tricky to predict which way markets will jump, yet UK datacentres continue to grow and hold investor attention Continue Reading
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The impact of generative AI on the datacentre
While artificial intelligence will not live up to its name any time soon, mass adoption of large language models, whether by customers or in-house, requires thinking about by enterprise IT leaders Continue Reading
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HDD specs: Assess SATA vs SAS, sustained data rates and block size
In part two of a two-part series, we look at sustained data rates in hard disk drive specs, SATA versus SAS, drive security, and how HDD makers pack density into products by shingling Continue Reading
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Schneider Electric on why datacentre operators need to close the ‘sustainability gap’
Datacentre operators sometimes have a hard time ensuring their actions match their words and pledges on sustainability matters, which could put the industry at risk of greenwashing accusations, Schneider Electric warns Continue Reading
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Providers unconcerned about Ofcom probe into hyperscaler influence on cloud market
Should we be more worried about the growing dominance of the three big cloud providers – AWS, Azure and Google? Continue Reading
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AIOps for storage: Potential huge benefits, but lots of lock-in
Applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to storage can help to predict bottlenecks, diagnose I/O issues and recommend upgrades, but suppliers’ products are largely limited to their own hardware Continue Reading
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How water conservation and management floats on cloud
From the cloud comes our water supply – an essential building block and life support system increasingly underpinned by IT infrastructure Continue Reading
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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
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Hydrogen’s promise: How fuel cells might power lower-carbon datacentres
Could UK datacentre operators soon adopt emerging hydrogen technologies to reach expanding energy and emissions requirements? Continue Reading
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Datacentres and climate change: Operators accused of being all talk and no action on sustainability
Datacentre operators talk a good fight when it comes to tackling climate change, but there is far more they should and could be doing to make their operations more sustainable, say experts Continue Reading
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Decarbonising datacentres: Turning the hot air about heat reuse into real-life use cases
Reusing waste heat from datacentres to warm local businesses and homes could bring about considerable reductions in carbon emissions and lower energy costs, so what needs to happen to make this a more widespread practice? Continue Reading
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Uninterruptible power in the datacentre: Choosing between sustainability and uptime
With datacentres under heavier pressure to decarbonise, could even the lowly UPS play a larger role? Continue Reading
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Hybrid IT: Making datacentre and cloud work better together in the enterprise
Enterprises are increasingly trying to balance and manage IT assets in a variety of environments, but there are plenty of tools and technologies out there to make the job a lot easier Continue Reading
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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
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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
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Post-pandemic IT: Are virtual datacentre tours here to stay?
A physical tour of a datacentre has traditionally been a key marketing and selling tool for colocation operators, and the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many to provide virtual alternatives. But how do they compare? Continue Reading
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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
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Private cloud deployments: Beating the blind spots and bottlenecks
Private cloud can be challenging to manage while meeting the ramped-up demands of data-driven enterprises Continue Reading
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The drive towards computational storage
The explosion in data is driving demand for faster computing and storage remains a bottleneck – but things are about to change Continue Reading
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Serverless: Weighing up the pros and cons for enterprises
The concept of serverless computing has been gaining traction within enterprises for several years now, but what is it and how do CIOs know if it is the right fit for their applications? Continue Reading
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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
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A safe bet: How Covid-19 is fuelling investor interest in the datacentre industry
With demand for cloud and colocation capacity soaring on the back of the Covid-19 pandemic, datacentres are looking like an increasingly attractive bet for the investor community. Computer Weekly finds out why Continue Reading
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Storage analytics: How AI helps storage management
We look at storage analytics products that measure key metrics in storage hardware, single-vendor and multi-vendor tools, and how AI-based storage management and AIOps is emerging Continue Reading
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Aerospace and satellite comms: The next growth frontier for cloud service providers?
Space projects of the near future are less sci-fi and more about driving efficiencies through business intelligence, edge analytics and cloud technologies Continue Reading
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A Dell of a deal: What a VMware spin-off could mean for datacentre operators
Analysts doubt that Dell would be fool enough to entirely divest itself of VMware, which continues to offer massive value to the enterprise. And how would a change affect the datacentre? Continue Reading
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Coronavirus: How Covid-19 has elevated the status of the datacentre industry
The pandemic has served to highlight just how dependent the world is on the datacentre community – and governments, policy-makers and investors are taking note Continue Reading
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David vs Goliath: How the smaller cloud firms have weathered the Covid-19 storm
The toll the coronavirus pandemic has taken on the hyperscale cloud community is well documented, but how have smaller providers fared in the face of soaring demand for their services? Continue Reading
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Keeping the lights on: Managing datacentre engineers through Covid-19
The coronavirus pandemic has seen datacentre engineers reclassified as “essential workers”, but how are their employers ensuring they can continue to do their work in a safe and secure way? Continue Reading
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Outsourcing PKI to the cloud: What enterprises need to know
Moving public key infrastructure deployments to the cloud can bring a lot of benefits to IT leaders and their wider organisations, but first they need to make sure doing so is right for them Continue Reading
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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
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Finding a fix for the IT industry's recruitment woes: A datacentre perspective
The datacentre industry is in the midst of a well-documented skills crisis, caused by a mix of sector-specific challenges and some more generalised ones Continue Reading
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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
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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
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Cambridge Cognition CTO on applying server monitoring principles to suicide prevention
Cambridge Cognition CTO, Ricky Dolphin, discusses why it pays to think outside the box when trying to find technological answers to business and customer problems Continue Reading
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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
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Hybrid cloud: Weighing up what to run in the cloud and on-premise
The hybrid cloud model promises a lot, but enterprises really need to take their time when working out what applications and workloads to run where – or they will find themselves on a hiding to nothing Continue Reading
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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
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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
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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
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IT administrator 2.0: Adapting to life in the automation age
As the use of automation becomes increasingly pervasive in enterprise IT environments, systems administrators need to adapt and update their skills to remain relevant Continue Reading
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GlaxoSmithKline R&D CDO on combining Hadoop and Docker to boost drug discovery efforts
Mark Ramsey, chief digital officer of research and development at GSK, describes how banking on big data, containers and on-premise technologies is speeding up the company’s efforts to uncover new drugs and improve the hit rate of its clinical trials Continue Reading
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Infrastructure patching at scale: What you need to know
Embarking on an enterprise-wide patching exercise can be a daunting process for IT departments, but there are few things that can be done to make it less fraught and ensure effectiveness Continue Reading
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Colocation and the hyperscalers: What the cloud giants want in a datacentre partner
The colocation market is booming on the back of the growing demand from the hyperscale cloud giants for readily available datacentre capacity, but why are some operators more successful than others when it comes to landing their business? Continue Reading
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Dividing lines: EU bid to curb server energy use has the European datacentre community split
An EU-backed push to curb European datacentre energy use has proven to be a divisive issue, as debate rages over the usefulness of using idle energy to determine the overall efficiency of servers Continue Reading
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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
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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
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Serverless computing: What it is and why it matters
Enterprises might be forgiven for thinking serverless computing is just the latest in a long line of hyped technology concepts, but there is serious substance to it Continue Reading
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Intel vs AMD: Server rivals battling it out for edge datacentre supremacy
Chipmakers Intel and AMD are targeting edge computing environments with their latest embedded chips. What do each firm's propositions have to offer? Continue Reading
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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
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Cloud management platforms: What you need to know to make multi-cloud happen
Deploying a cloud management platform can make adopting a multi-cloud approach to consuming IT resources easier, but choosing one that is the right fit for your enterprise can be a challenge for CIOs Continue Reading
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Upset in Athenry: Examining the impact of Apple's delayed Irish datacentre build
Apple is set to hear at the end of this month whether its much-delayed Irish datacentre build can go ahead. Computer Weekly examines the ins and outs of this complex case Continue Reading
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Case study: Open University uses Microsoft Azure to create course content clearance hub
The Open University recently scooped the award for Best Cloud Project at the CW European User Awards, and here's why Continue Reading
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Marseille: Europe’s networking gateway to Africa
The city of Marseille in southern France is fast becoming a hub for datacentre and network operators who want low latency connections to Africa. Continue Reading
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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
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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
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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
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A guide to APM for the network manager
Has application performance management become a much needed discipline for the network manager? We examine the issues for IT departments Continue Reading
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The UK’s problem with power
Datacentre power buyers say Britain’s deregulated energy market is as complex as trading in derivatives Continue Reading
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Tune Raid performance to get the most from your HDDs
Tune Raid performance at the storage controller to match application I/O demands to optimal hard drive (HDD) performance Continue Reading