In Depth

In Depth

Managing servers and operating systems

• Expensive datacentre outages: Untangling messy collaborations, contributing costs and complexity

  Even if outages in the datacentre are trending down, Uptime data this year traces rising costs per outage. So what can be done?  Continue Reading

• Carbon copies: How to stop data retention from killing the planet

  Our society has a serious digital hoarding problem, which is coming at a cost to the environment. But what can be done to address it?  Continue Reading

• 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

• AWS and startups: Using accelerator programmes to help enterprises address their pain points

  The early days of Amazon Web Services saw its public cloud technologies keenly adopted by the startup community. Now the company is continuing its support for this customer sector by rolling out its accelerator programmes  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

• A waste of energy: Dealing with idle servers in the datacentre

  Servers can be the slackers of the datacentre, consuming power without doing much work. Why not whip them into shape?  Continue Reading

• Why post-pandemic reskilling must focus on mainframes

  A major contributing factor to UK-wide skills shortages is the significant number of people who have left the workforce since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic  Continue Reading

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Gartner: How to turn old datacentres into critical IT assets

  IT infrastructure and operations leaders are increasingly focusing on new ideas and technologies alongside ways to deliver business value  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

• How colocation fits alongside a cloud-native architecture

  IT departments are on a cloud-native roadmap to become more agile, but they are constrained by the risks involved in migrating core systems and data  Continue Reading

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• EMIS Group CIO: Breaking down NHS patient data silos by going all-in on AWS

  EMIS Group CIO Pete Malcolm is in the throes of a sizeable revamp of the healthcare provider's flagship software system for GPs that will see it go all-in on AWS, while addressing the government's push to make NHS data systems more open and ...  Continue Reading

• Why VMware is betting big on containers, edge computing and IoT

  With the server virtualisation game won, VMware is having to diversify into new areas, with cloud-native computing emerging as a top area of interest for the firm  Continue Reading

• SDN: Where is it now and what is the future?

  Software-defined networking is one of the great IT hype stories of this century – we look at where it stands now  Continue Reading

• 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

• The importance of adopting an evergreen IT strategy

  Today's modern IT systems are potentially tomorrow's legacy technology problems, without an "evergreening strategy" in place  Continue Reading

• Windows Virtual Desktops: Microsoft takes virtual Windows mainstream on Azure

  Microsoft is fleshing out its virtual desktop proposition by allowing enterprises to access Windows via its Azure platform, but what does this mean for its competitors?  Continue Reading

• 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

• 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

• Enhance efficiency by automating IT services

  We look at the role of artificial intelligence and chatbots in IT service management  Continue Reading

• DevOps done right: How to break down the IT department silos without alienating developers

  Enterprise DevOps adoption rests on securing buy-in at all levels of the company, but developer support is not a given, particularly when it means taking on responsibilities outside their traditional roles  Continue Reading

• Why Kubernetes is emerging as a critical enabler of multi-cloud

  The buzz around containers is showing no signs of stopping, with Kubernetes fast emerging as the technology of choice for enterprises looking to build multi-cloud environments  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

• Keeping cloud costs in check: Why good governance is key

  Without proper checks and controls in place, it is all too easy for the cost of using cloud to spiral out of control in enterprises, but it doesn't have to be  Continue Reading

• The bitcoin boom: How colocation datacentres are cashing in on cryptocurrency mining

  Cryptocurrency miners are turning to colocation providers to help scale up their operations, drive profits and boost their resiliency, but the benefits could be relatively short-lived for all concerned, it seems  Continue Reading

• 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

• 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

• 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

• The multi-cloud myth: Why workload portability is still a pipe dream

  While IT providers are fond of suggesting moving workloads between clouds is as easy as dragging and dropping apps between environments, the reality can be far more complex  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

• Australian startups find their way in the cloud

  Public cloud services have empowered Australian startups to scale up and go global from day one  Continue Reading

• Moore’s Law is running out – but don’t panic

  Can system performance continue to improve to cope with the burgeoning needs of datacentres  Continue Reading

• Docker storage: how to get persistent storage in Docker

  Docker, by default, doesn’t come with persistent storage, which presents an issue to some workloads customers that want to run in containers – however, there are ways to achieve persistent storage  Continue Reading

• The pros and cons of cloud bursting

  The much-vaunted benefits of cloud computing can be overshadowed by portability and interoperability issues  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

• [email protected]: How UK home brew gave computing to the masses

  From batch processing to the graphical user interface, from desktop PCs to smartphones, from luggables to wearables, computing has come a long way since Computer Weekly was first published in 1966. We look at some of the personal computers that ...  Continue Reading

• [email protected]: 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

• What are containers and microservices?

  Independently deployable bits of code can be used to build agile applications. We look at some of the main players  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

• Using SAP Hana as a data warehouse

  Enterprises are using SAP Hana for in-memory data marts and SAP Business Warehouse implementations that integrate with other data warehouses  Continue Reading

• 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

• Microservices: How to prepare next-generation cloud applications

  A microservice architecture promotes developing and deploying applications composed of autonomous, self-contained units  Continue Reading

• Networking technologies emerging in the enterprise

  We look at the latest networking technologies on offer, and those being adopted in the enterprise  Continue Reading

• Cloud, frozen pizza model and the immutable infrastructure

  The architecture pattern for immutable infrastructure is based on the made-to-order pizza model  Continue Reading

• Demystifying Kubernetes: the tool to manage Google-scale workloads in the cloud

  We are witnessing a new technology wave in the form of immutable infrastructure and micro-services  Continue Reading

• Will silicon photonics replace copper cabling in mainstream datacentres?

  Silicon photonics can increase bandwidth in servers, improve data transfer speeds and reduce complexity. But are datacentres ready for it?  Continue Reading

• Can the mainframe remain relevant in the cloud and mobile era?

  IBM mainframes run more than 1.1m transactions per second, yet the mainframe has remained largely unfashionable. We investigate  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

• 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

• Bombay Stock Exchange’s server consolidation journey

  BSE recently consolidated its servers and began its cloud computing journey. Find out more about BSE’s server consolidation initiative in this case study.  Continue Reading