In Depth

IT hardware

All-flash vs hybrid flash for virtual desktop storage

With massive random I/O and a huge bias towards writes, virtual desktop storage – especially for the more feature-rich VDI 2.0 – requires the speed of all-flash and hybrid flash storage Continue Reading
UK datacentre growth trends: Why are users shunning inner-city facilities?

Research suggests inner cities are falling out of favour with datacentre developers, with cost-sensitive users willing to look further afield for co-location services Continue Reading
Disaster recovery in Russia: Critical sectors play it safe

Disaster recovery methods in Russia span tape backup to cloud disaster recovery, but for businesses in the most critical sectors in-house provision is the favoured method Continue Reading
Hybrid flash vs all-flash storage: When is some flash not enough?

When it comes to choosing between hybrid flash and all-flash storage, the question is increasingly not how much flash is enough, but whether you still need any disk at all Continue Reading
Hotels.com turns to cloud and big data to drive up online holiday bookings

Online hotel booking site explains how the use of public cloud and NoSQL database tech has benefited its business Continue Reading

ARM wrestles its way into the datacentre with the help of 64-bit chips

Intel x86 technology has traditionally ruled the datacentre roost, but could the power consumption benefits of ARM 64-bit systems change all that? Continue Reading
VMware vs OpenStack: How they handle storage

The opportunities and challenges presented by the two virtualisation environments when it comes to storage, backup and disaster recovery. Continue Reading
OpenStack Manila: File access storage for the open source cloud

OpenStack Manila is the file level access method in development by the open source cloud platform. What is it, how does it work and when will it be ready? Continue Reading
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
Journey to the West: Will Huawei make its services ambitions stick?

As network hardware supplier Huawei enters the services game, we consider if the West is ready to buy IT services from China Continue Reading
Software-defined networking in Europe: The state of play

What stage of the evolution of software-defined networking are we really at, and when will the hype turn to reality? Continue Reading

Erasure coding vs Raid for disk rebuilds

Erasure coding as a means of data protection has emerged with object storage and offers an alternative to Raid systems Continue Reading
Flash storage in Benelux: Service providers kick-start flash adoption

Demand for quick response times and non-stop availability has pushed use of flash – particularly hybrid flash – storage in Benelux, a region with a high presence of service providers Continue Reading
PCIe SSD product survey 2015: New form factors emerge

PCIe SSD performance has not increased significantly but new form factors and protocols -- such as NVMe -- have emerged for better connectivity 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