Data centre
Deciding where and how to build and operate a datacentre is one of the most important decisions your organisation will make. This section covers how to build a solid datacentre infrastructure, including selecting the right location to build your new facility, best practices for designing a new datacentre, and cooling and air flow techniques. Learn about green IT, data management systems, servers and operating systems.
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Opinion
10 Oct 2025
IT Sustainability Think Tank: Don’t believe Big Tech’s green IT hype
In an era where nearly every tech supplier touts green credentials, IT directors face the challenging task of separating genuine sustainability commitments from marketing spin. But how? Continue Reading
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News
09 Oct 2025
Meta to boost APAC connectivity with subsea cable
The 8,000km Candle subsea cable is expected to bolster internet capacity for more than a billion people as tech giants continue to invest in digital infrastructure across the region Continue Reading
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News
28 Jan 2015
Wellcome Trust builds 1,728-core grid for DNA analysis
The Wellcome Trust Centre has deployed a high-performance computing cluster based on Fujitsu servers Continue Reading
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Feature
22 Jan 2015
A closer look at Google Container Engine
In just 12 months, Docker has transformed from a simple open-source container management project into a powerful platform Continue Reading
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News
21 Jan 2015
IBM revenue declines as company shifts to higher value deals
IBM has reported a 12% decline in profits for the fourth quarter of 2014 following the sale of its System x business to Lenovo Continue Reading
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News
12 Jan 2015
IT fails to get a grip on shadow applications
IT managers are unaware how much shadow IT is used by their business, the Cloud Security Alliance has warned Continue Reading
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Feature
09 Jan 2015
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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News
07 Jan 2015
Oracle will lose out unless it changes its software licensing
In an open letter, Campaign for Clear Licensing highlights the risk to Oracle’s future earnings due to aggressive licensing Continue Reading
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Feature
06 Jan 2015
Microservices: How to prepare next-generation cloud applications
A microservice architecture promotes developing and deploying applications composed of autonomous, self-contained units Continue Reading
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News
30 Dec 2014
Case study: How VMware’s vCloud meets customer needs
Cloud innovation winner of the Computer Weekly European User Awards for datacentre/storage 2014, VMware, shares its story Continue Reading
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News
19 Dec 2014
Price cuts and posturing in the public cloud war
The price battle among commodity cloud players is set to rage on, but how much impact is it really having for enterprise customers? Continue Reading
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News
18 Dec 2014
CIO interview: Mercedes AMG Petronas IT director on the need for speed in IT
When Matt Harris became IT director for F1 team Mercedes AMG Petronas in 2009, IT costs needed to be slashed Continue Reading
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Feature
11 Dec 2014
The state of mobile back end as a service
Common mobile application services are increasingly being hosted on central back-end servers – but what does that mean for the enterprise? Continue Reading
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News
10 Dec 2014
Hero Group uses vMotion to replace SAN and servers with Nutanix
Baby food, fruit and cereal bar company Hero Group has migrated its Holland operations over to a single virtual platform Continue Reading
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News
02 Dec 2014
HP is ‘coming back strong’, says CEO Meg Whitman
At the HP Discover event in Barcelona, CEO Meg Whitman addressed the future for customers following HP's split into two businesses Continue Reading
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News
02 Dec 2014
Ministry of Defence consolidates with green datacentre
The MoD is aiming to reduce its IT carbon footprint with the construction of a new datacentre to replace the existing host site in Bath Continue Reading
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Feature
01 Dec 2014
Networking technologies emerging in the enterprise
We look at the latest networking technologies on offer, and those being adopted in the enterprise Continue Reading
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News
27 Nov 2014
How resilient is the public cloud?
The recent downtime that affected some Azure services following an update illustrates the precarious balance CIOs face in the cloud era Continue Reading
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E-Zine
17 Nov 2014
Cloud providers are coming to Europe
In this week’s Computer Weekly, cloud providers like IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce.com are building datacentres in Europe in response to data protection concerns – we examine how the cloud is moving to Europe. Microsoft is embracing the cloud and mobile and decoupling Office from Windows – we look at the implications for corporate IT. And even PCs are moving into the cloud - we analyse the rise of desktop as a service. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
14 Nov 2014
Amazon unveils Docker-friendly container service and EC2 instance
Amazon has launched its free, Docker-friendly EC2 container management service Continue Reading
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News
14 Nov 2014
Johnson & Johnson turns to AWS for hybrid cloud and borderless datacentre
Johnson & Johnson adopted Amazon Web Services to develop its hybrid IT strategy, its CTO told the AWS re:Invent 2014 conference Continue Reading
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News
13 Nov 2014
AWS launches Aurora cloud-based relational database engine
AWS launches an open-source relational database engine called Aurora at its re:Invent 2014 cloud conference Continue Reading
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News
11 Nov 2014
What to expect from AWS re:Invent 2014
Amazon is all set to unveil new services and features at its AWS re:Invent 2014 Continue Reading
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News
05 Nov 2014
Interview: The IT powering animated movie-making
Video special effects require similar processing to oil and gas, but lack the budget, says head of technology at Illumination Mac Guff, Bruno Mahe Continue Reading
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News
04 Nov 2014
Google joins enterprise cloud battle with additions to its cloud platform
Google made a raft of announcements at its GCP Live event, including enhancements to its networking stack and storage price drops Continue Reading
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Photo Story
01 Nov 2014
Inside Kashiwa-no-ha: Hitachi Smart City near Tokyo
Hitachi shares what its Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City looks like near Tokyo, Japan. Continue Reading
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News
31 Oct 2014
Ipswich hospital improves healthcare service with Esri data visualisation
Health pilots location-based technology that delivers data visualisation Continue Reading
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News
30 Oct 2014
UK lags behind US and Australia in DevOps adoption
The UK is significantly behind other markets in terms of DevOps adoption Continue Reading
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News
28 Oct 2014
British fashion retailer AllSaints picks Google tools for innovation
Fashion brand AllSaints has refreshed its technology strategy with Google technologies to improve collaboration Continue Reading
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News
28 Oct 2014
Met Office supercomputer to increase weather forecast accuracy
Met Office buys £97m Cray supercomputer to help predict disruptive weather events with a far greater degree of accuracy Continue Reading
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News
27 Oct 2014
Cloud providers rush to build European datacentres over data sovereignty
Cloud providers IBM and Google build datacentres in the EU as enterprises insist on keeping their data in Europe Continue Reading
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News
23 Oct 2014
BBC takes iPlayer video production to AWS cloud to beat bottleneck and storage woes
Having run Video Factory on AWS for over a year, BBC's Robert Shield explains how he overcame iPlayer bottleneck and availability challenges Continue Reading
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News
23 Oct 2014
European enterprises can halve colo expenses by moving north, says Gartner
Favourable environmental conditions in Northern Europe mean enterprises can save on their datacentre expenses Continue Reading
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News
22 Oct 2014
EMC buys out Cisco’s stakes in VCE as year-on-year revenue jumps 9%
Storage giant EMC has reported a 9% increase year on year for the third quarter of 2014, thanks to revenue rises across its divisions Continue Reading
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News
21 Oct 2014
Why Shell, BP and PwC teamed up to launch platform-neutral IT4IT Forum
Lack of IT integration and workload interoperability is pushing enterprises such as Royal Dutch Shell to collaborate with IT providers to develop standards Continue Reading
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News
20 Oct 2014
IBM operating income falls by 18% as it offloads semiconductor unit
IBM reported lower-than-expected earnings for the third quarter of 2014, with revenue down by 4% year-on-year Continue Reading
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Feature
15 Oct 2014
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
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News
15 Oct 2014
CIOs fear poor cloud investment is making businesses uncompetitive
CIOs and CFOs fear their enterprises are missing revenue opportunities due to poor cloud strategies Continue Reading
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Feature
14 Oct 2014
Backup and disaster recovery in the age of virtualisation
One of the benefits of using virtual machines is the scope for improved backup. We look at the product offerings from traditional and new suppliers Continue Reading
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News
10 Oct 2014
Azure CTO Mark Russinovich's top ten public cloud security risks
Microsoft Azure cloud CTO Mark Russinovich identified ten key security risks of public cloud services Continue Reading
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News
10 Oct 2014
Symantec splits storage and security
Symantec is splitting its storage and security business, following just days after HP announced its split Continue Reading
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News
10 Oct 2014
Starbucks uses cloud to manage innovation and disruptive technologies
Starbucks coffee chain innovates IT strategies to hone its competitive edge using cloud services, says IT director Robert Teagle Continue Reading
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News
08 Oct 2014
The challenges facing HP as it splits in two
HP is splitting its business in two - but it is a reaction to the changing way that businesses and consumers buy IT Continue Reading
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News
01 Oct 2014
Vtesse bought by Interoute in major fibre expansion
Acquisition adds 7,000km of fibre infrastructure to Interoute’s European network Continue Reading
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News
29 Sep 2014
ARM enters mainstream datacentre with HP’s ProLiant Moonshot servers
ARM chips have entered mainstream enterprise datacentre with HP's production-ready ARM-powered Moonshot servers Continue Reading
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News
29 Sep 2014
Case study: Deutsche Post DHL develops software contract templates to reduce costs
Deutsche Post DHL has created contract templates to manage software costs. Computer Weekly speaks to the people leading the initiative Continue Reading
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News
25 Sep 2014
Oracle releases OpenStack Support for Oracle Linux and Oracle VM
Oracle has made its Oracle OpenStack for Oracle Linux distribution generally available to support customers Continue Reading
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News
24 Sep 2014
Accommodation booking site picks Dell cloud to fix downtime issues
Eviivo, a UK-based online accommodation booking website, has placed its business-critical systems on a Dell cloud platform Continue Reading
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News
23 Sep 2014
Google to build giant '40-football pitch' datacentre in the Netherlands
Google will invest €600m to build a giant, 120-megawatt datacentre in the Netherlands Continue Reading
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Feature
23 Sep 2014
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
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E-Zine
22 Sep 2014
Nato and business join forces to tackle cyber security threats
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we look at how Nato wants to work with businesses to tackle their common cyber security threat. Is Amazon Web Services becoming the new Microsoft? We examine the historic similarities between two very different suppliers. And low-cost airline easyJet talks about how it has implemented a hybrid cloud for greater IT and business flexibility. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
17 Sep 2014
KPMG: IoT, 3D printing and healthcare IT to have most impact
Internet of things (IoT), 3D printing and biotech or healthcare IT are among the IT trends that will change the way people work and live Continue Reading
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E-Zine
15 Sep 2014
The IT challenges facing an independent Scotland
In this week’s Computer Weekly, as Scotland goes to the polls to vote on independence, we assess the IT challenges the country would face. We look at the products available in the fast-growing market for object storage. And we ask if it will be worth migrating to future version of Windows given the rise in mobile usage. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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E-Zine
08 Sep 2014
How cloud is saving lives
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we look at how the power of public cloud is helping scientists to tackle diseases such as cancer and malaria. Big banks are turning to tech startups for innovation – we ask why. And our latest buyer’s guide examines micro-datacentre technologies. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
05 Sep 2014
King's College, UCL and LSE back £900,000 national datacentre project
A consortium of universities, including LSE, UCL and King's College, is backing a national datacentre for academics Continue Reading
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News
05 Sep 2014
EasyJet sheds 'scrum' image with hybrid IT
EasyJet’s reservation system could not provision for allocated seating, so the airline added a feature on Azure Continue Reading
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News
03 Sep 2014
How Sony Music used Google cloud for One Direction’s 1D-Day event
Sony Music and its digital agency AIS London adopted Google Cloud Platform services to handle One Direction's day event Continue Reading
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News
02 Sep 2014
Why bare metal cloud is in vogue
Bare metal services have been around since 2009 but cloud is witnessing renewed interest in it thanks to new offerings Continue Reading
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News
29 Aug 2014
Windows Server 2003 EOL: HP seeks to cash in as IBM-Lenovo deal yet to close
As enterprises look to refresh their infrastructure, HP is playing the stability card to win deals as IBM and Dell are mired by uncertainties Continue Reading
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News
26 Aug 2014
Datacentre operator Telecity’s CEO Michael Tobin resigns
Telecity’s CEO Michael Tobin will step down from the helm at the FTSE 250 datacentre provider on 31 October, after 10 years in the role Continue Reading
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News
21 Aug 2014
Load balancing supports Kent County Council's VDI project
Kent County Council picks Kemp Technologies load balancers to support a deployment of VMware Horizon View and Workspace across its estate Continue Reading
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Feature
20 Aug 2014
The internet of things is coming: Is your datacentre ready?
Gartner estimates the IoT will see 26 billion units installed by 2020 – channelling huge volumes of data traffic into datacentres Continue Reading
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News
15 Aug 2014
Nike builds datacentre cloud and network infrastructure
Nike is creating a scalable next-generation datacentre cloud and retail network infrastructure using Juniper's MetaFabric architecture Continue Reading
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News
12 Aug 2014
Intel unveils first 14nm processor aimed at mobile computing devices
Chipmaker's first processor based on 14nm micro-architecture will be thinner, cooler and aimed at tablet PCs Continue Reading
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News
11 Aug 2014
Intel watches ARM as low-powered computing thrives
As the PC market continues to decline, ARM is proving that non-x86 chips have a long and prosperous future Continue Reading
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E-Zine
04 Aug 2014
Driving virtualisation into pole position in Formula One
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we find out how the Caterham F1 team has used virtualisation in its trackside technology to help improve race performance. We analyse how growing competition in the cloud market is affecting Amazon Web Services’ dominant position. And we look at silicon photonics, an emerging datacentre technology that promises better connectivity and reduced complexity. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
31 Jul 2014
Bitcoin mining firm CoinTerra signs multi-megawatt datacentre deal
CoinTerra, the firm that provides the hardware and software that power the bitcoin blockchain ecosystem, signs a multi-megawatt datacentre deal Continue Reading
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News
31 Jul 2014
£700m government hosting deal limits bidders to North-East England datacentre
Want to win the £700m Crown Hosting Service contract? You'll need a major datacentre near Newcastle to stand any chance Continue Reading
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News
25 Jul 2014
AWS feels the pressure of cloud competition
AWS became the gold standard of public cloud. But are price wars, hybrid cloud and increased competition denting its growth? Continue Reading
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News
24 Jul 2014
Crew Clothing fashions cloud-based marketing to engage buyers
British luxury casualwear brand Crew Clothing chose cloud marketing to move from batch email marketing to a more timely and personal approach Continue Reading
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News
24 Jul 2014
Citrix SaaS revenue rises 12% while overall revenue grows 7% YoY
Citrix has reported a 7% revenue increase in its second quarter of fiscal year 2014 . But it reported double-digit revenue growth in SaaS Continue Reading
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News
21 Jul 2014
EU funds project to boost European cloud computing market
Cloudcatalyst project will assess cloud market in Europe, identify barriers to cloud adoption and provide tools to boost its growth Continue Reading
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News
18 Jul 2014
BT’s secure link to Microsoft Azure goes live in Europe
BT’s new, secure, high-performance connectivity to Azure public cloud has gone live in Europe three months after BT teamed up with Microsoft Continue Reading
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News
15 Jul 2014
Diageo puts ServiceNow fizz in IT service desk
Diageo has gone live with an implementation of ServiceNow to automate IT services as part of a global transformation Continue Reading
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News
10 Jul 2014
Google Ventures expands with $100m to fund ‘most disruptive’ startups in Europe
Google is launching an expanded venture fund for Europe, with £58m to support and invest in next-gen European startups Continue Reading
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News
10 Jul 2014
Microsoft adds StorSimple hybrid storage arrays to Azure cloud service
Azure users get more storage, archiving and disaster recovery from 1 August 2014 with Microsoft's StorSimple 8000 series hybrid storage arrays Continue Reading
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News
08 Jul 2014
Huddle eases collaborative critical path for engineering firm WSP
Engineering consultancy WSP chooses Huddle to allow its engineers and architects to share project data securely and collaborate, regardless of location Continue Reading
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News
08 Jul 2014
Airbus deploys modular datacentre strategy to boost HPC capacity
The aircraft manufacturer has deployed HP's performance optimised datacentres (PODs) to increase its high performance compute capabilities for its engineers Continue Reading
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News
03 Jul 2014
Netflix releases its AWS monitoring tool Security Monkey into the wild
Netflix has made Security Monkey, the AWS tracker tool it built for itself, freely available to other Amazon cloud users Continue Reading
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News
03 Jul 2014
Microsoft and Google propose 25Gbps and 50Gbps Ethernet networks for cloud datacentres
Technology giants including Microsoft and Google form a consortium to fire up datacentre networks’ performance for cloud-scale infrastructure. Continue Reading
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Photo Story
01 Jul 2014
A peek into Intel’s Internet of Things lab in Swindon
Intel's new IoT lab in Swindon is researching connected devices such as a connected coffee machine, targeted ads and live Twitter analyses Continue Reading
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E-Zine
27 Jun 2014
CW Europe - July 2014 Edition
In this issue of CW Europe we investigate how changing your storage can make the world of difference to your company’s carbon emissions. Continue Reading
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News
18 Jun 2014
Case study: How eBay uses its own OpenStack private cloud
eBay runs one of its most crucial workloads – its website – on an OpenStack private cloud platform developed by itself Continue Reading
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Feature
13 Jun 2014
Micro-datacentre: What IT problems it solves and what workload systems suit it
A micro-datacentre is a smaller containerised datacentre system designed to solve different problems or to handle different workloads Continue Reading
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News
11 Jun 2014
Datacentre spending shifts to Europe as buyers focus on low-cost servers
Server manufacturers made 20% less in sales in the first quarter of 2014, compared with the fourth quarter of 2013 Continue Reading
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News
10 Jun 2014
Facebook shares lessons learnt from deploying Raid in HDFS clusters
Facebook deployed Raid in large HDFS clusters to increase capacity and reduce data replication, but it faced many challenges Continue Reading
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News
09 Jun 2014
Home Secretary Theresa May unveils datacentre in Maidenhead
Home Secretary Theresa May has opened a multi-million-pound extended datacentre, owned by UK cloud firm iomart Continue Reading
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Feature
09 Jun 2014
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
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E-Zine
09 Jun 2014
The case for a European cloud market
In this week’s Computer Weekly, the European Commission wants to create a digital single market in Europe based on industry standard clouds – but is the plan realistic? Network encryption promises to solve many IT security threats – we examine the benefits. And our latest buyer’s guide looks at business process management. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
06 Jun 2014
Cloud impact can be as big as the advent of computing itself: EIU report
Cloud is not just a replacement for older computing platforms, but a change as revolutionary as the advent of computing itself, says EIU report Continue Reading
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News
05 Jun 2014
UK airports lead move to cloud services
UK airports are at the vanguard of using cloud to develop innovative services, says Gatwick CIO. Continue Reading
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News
03 Jun 2014
High availability strategy key to saving costs, says Sungard AS
The cost of IT downtime is extremely high for businesses – but must all systems and applications be highly available all the time? Continue Reading
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E-Zine
02 Jun 2014
How big data brings big donations for charities
In this week’s Computer Weekly, hear how big data is helping charities to improve their fundraising by better targeting potential donors. We find out how the UK’s biggest newspaper publisher is moving its IT to the cloud. And we examine the options for datacentre cooling technologies to cut your energy costs. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
29 May 2014
BSkyB retunes IT to ready-for-anything datacentre quad
British broadcaster BSkyB has based its IT on four core datacentres that are resilient, interconnected, energy-efficient and cloud-ready Continue Reading
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Feature
29 May 2014
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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News
23 May 2014
HP job cuts head towards the 50,000 mark as company tackles cost
A further 16000 jobs are set to go as HP continues to slash its workforce through a restructuring initiative which began in 2012 Continue Reading
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News
19 May 2014
SAP certifies core business apps to run on Microsoft Azure
From June, users of SAP Business Suite software, Business All-In-One solution, SAP Mobile Platform, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise and Hana platform will be able to run them on Azure Continue Reading
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News
09 May 2014
Facebook debuts ‘Rapid Deployment Data Centre’ design in Swedish facility
Facebook is expanding its Luleå datacentre in Sweden by deploying Rapid Deployment Data Centre (RDDC) design developed in collaboration with Emerson Power Network Continue Reading
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News
01 May 2014
Case study: How the BBC uses cloud to process media for iPlayer
The BBC has taken its iPlayer video-on-demand service to the cloud and cut media processing time from 9-10 hours to 20-30 minutes Continue Reading
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News
01 May 2014
British Gas brings central heating control to smartphones with AWS
British Gas used public cloud IT to enable people remotely control their homes’ central heating with smartphone apps and save on utility bills Continue Reading
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News
28 Apr 2014
US judge orders Microsoft to hand over email data held in Dublin
A US Judge has ordered Microsoft to give the District Court access to the contents of one of its customer’s emails stored on a server located in Dublin Continue Reading
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News
23 Apr 2014
Six Degrees datacentre suffers outage for more than 12 hours
Customers using Six Degrees’s datacentre and hosting services faced downtime as the hosting and managed services provider suffered an outage for over 12 hours Continue Reading