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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Feature
18 Oct 2025
How APAC organisations can embrace hybrid cloud
As cost pressures, data sovereignty rules and the rise of AI reshape IT priorities, we look at what organisations across Asia-Pacific can do to adopt the hybrid infrastructure model that places each workload in its optimal environment Continue Reading
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News
15 Oct 2025
Infor doubles down on APAC with cloud and AI
The enterprise software firm is targeting the region’s vast manufacturing sector by easing the move to the cloud and rolling out industry-specific AI agents, says CEO Kevin Samuelson 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
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News
23 Apr 2014
HP firmware bricks ProLiant server models
HP has released a server patch which it has admitted will kill 100 of its server models and 14 network adapters. Continue Reading
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News
23 Apr 2014
Optimising the data warehouse
Analysts Clive Longbottom and Rob Bamforth discuss approaches to optimising data warehouses for big data. Continue Reading
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News
17 Apr 2014
Datacentre lessons learnt from Heartbleed bug
The Heartbleed bug, an OpenSSL flaw affecting millions of websites, has some lessons for datacentre providers and operators Continue Reading
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News
15 Apr 2014
Greenpeace singles out datacentre firms for lack of energy efficiency
Greenpeace's new report on datacentre energy efficiency lauds efforts of some tech giants while singles out others for their lack of commitment to green energy Continue Reading
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News
15 Apr 2014
EU data privacy authorities approve Microsoft Azure, Office 365 cloud services
The European Union's data privacy authorities have given approval to Microsoft's cloud services including Windows Azure and Office 365 Continue Reading
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News
10 Apr 2014
BT and Microsoft to offer secure fast lane to Azure cloud
Microsoft’s UK cloud chief hails service as critical step in supporting CEO Satya Nadella’s ambitious plans for global cloud dominance Continue Reading
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News
07 Apr 2014
CIO interview: Leandro Balbinot, global CIO, HJ Heinz
Food giant HJ Heinz is gearing up to expand its international presence with a technology modernisation programme encompassing 23 countries Continue Reading
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News
04 Apr 2014
RWE signs seven-year network deal with Vodafone to improve efficiency
Utility provider RWE has signed a seven year, multi-million pound contract to run its network, to reduce cost and gain greater efficiency Continue Reading
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Feature
28 Mar 2014
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
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Feature
25 Mar 2014
Understanding the real value of IT and proving it to the business
At a time when costs are being continually squeezed, there is more pressure than ever to demonstrate the business value of technology Continue Reading
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News
20 Mar 2014
Mine machine data to boost business value
Businesses risk losing their competitive edge if they are unable to drill down into the information captured by machine-generated data Continue Reading
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News
19 Mar 2014
Oracle finally sees revenue growth from hardware business
Oracle has finally seen a boost from its server business, with hardware sales up 8% in its latest financial results Continue Reading
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Feature
19 Mar 2014
Case study: How John Lewis conquered the web
An in-depth look at the inside story of John Lewis' £40m e-commerce strategy. Continue Reading
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News
18 Mar 2014
Oracle pushes Exadata servers aggressively against IBM PureSystems
IDC’s latest market share data for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), has shown that Oracle is beginning to grow its server business Continue Reading
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News
18 Mar 2014
Global taskforce agrees on green datacentre metric
DCeP hopes to win widespread support as a useful and meaningful standard for measuring datacentre efficiency Continue Reading
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News
14 Mar 2014
Amazon Web Services reaches its 8th birthday
On March 14 2006 Amazon expanded from its retail heritage and launched its IT services business with the birth of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Continue Reading
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News
07 Mar 2014
CIOs hold fire over datacentre decisions
When it comes to devising datacentre strategies, are CIOs paralysed like rabbits in the headlights, or playing a calculated game of wait and see? Continue Reading
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Feature
06 Mar 2014
Converged stacks: What they are and the benefits they bring
We survey the converged stacks market: Servers, storage and networking in pre-configured product bundles for specific virtualisation and application use cases. Continue Reading
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News
04 Mar 2014
Gartner: Time to rethink backup procedures
IT leaders and storage managers can realise cost savings and improve their use of backup infrastructure by rethinking their back-up procedures, says Gartner analyst Dave Russell. Continue Reading
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News
25 Feb 2014
Interview: Prepare for the end of the silicon era
IT breakthroughs are governed by the insights of Intel's Gordon Moore in 1965. IBM fellow Bernie Meyerson believes Moore’s law no longer holds true Continue Reading
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News
24 Feb 2014
Case study: Virtualised storage adds value to Denmark's tunnel vision
State construction firm Femern selects DataCore system to help speed up Fehmarnbelt undersea odyssey and keep the sharks at bay Continue Reading
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Feature
20 Feb 2014
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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Photo Story
18 Feb 2014
UK IT spending to outpace rest of Europe in 2014
Computer Weekly research reveals the IT spending priorities for UK and European organisations in 2014. Continue Reading
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Feature
18 Feb 2014
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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E-Zine
17 Feb 2014
Swapping notepads for iPads – creating a digital police force
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we examine the new digital strategy at the Metropolitan Police, as the UK’s largest police force puts technology at the heart of crime fighting. IBM is spending $1.2bn developing cloud datacentres – we assess the plans and ask if the IT giant can catch up the cloud market leaders. And we find out from experts how Edwards Snowden’s NSA web surveillance revelations are affecting corporate IT security strategies. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
11 Feb 2014
Schneider accreditation aims to boost green datacentre skills
Datacentre supplier offers free vendor-neutral courses and certification through its online Energy University Continue Reading
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Feature
11 Feb 2014
Troubleshooting datacentre management issues
Gaining better control of the datacentre has to be a high priority to ensure high levels of performance and availability Continue Reading
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News
07 Feb 2014
Amazon nets lion’s share of $10bn public cloud market
AWS continues its unassailable domination of the sector, despite recent moves by Google, IBM and Microsoft Continue Reading
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E-Zine
04 Feb 2014
IT budgets bounce back from recession
In this issue of CW Europe find out how businesses across the region plan to use their IT budgets throughout 2014. Continue Reading
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E-Zine
03 Feb 2014
Rural broadband roll-out row
In this week’s Computer Weekly, a small Lancashire village is at the centre of a row over rural broadband – we examine the complex arguments on both sides of an issue that goes to the heart of criticisms of the UK’s roll-out plan. The move to cloud and hosting is changing the market for datacentre technologies – we look at the implications for IT managers. Have you heard of Sepa? We explain why you need to know about the upcoming financial regulation. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
31 Jan 2014
WIll open source save the datacentre industry?
IT rivals stand cheek-by-jowl to praise Facebook’s Open Compute Project, but is the love-in a Damascene conversion or just damage limitation? Continue Reading
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News
29 Jan 2014
Microsoft joins Open Compute Project
Redmond giant makes server specs public in bid to influence future datacentre design Continue Reading
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Photo Story
21 Jan 2014
UK cloud computing priorities 2014
Research from Computer Weekly and TechTarget shows UK businesses are the most committed to cloud in Europe Continue Reading
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News
20 Jan 2014
IBM to open London datacentre as part of $1.2bn global cloud push
New facility first in UK to be based on IBM SoftLayer cloud architecture Continue Reading
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E-Zine
20 Jan 2014
The IT risks facing Universal Credit
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we examine the ongoing IT risks facing the UK government’s highest-profile IT project – the troubled Universal Credit programme to reform the UK’s welfare system. We talk to IT leaders to find out their spending priorities for 2014 and how their IT budgets are shaping up. The digital chief at BBC Worldwide talks about managing technology innovation. And we find out about the latest best practice in improving datacentre performance. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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Photo Story
17 Jan 2014
Top IT priorities for 2014 in Europe
Exclusive Computer Weekly research showing how IT decision makers are spending their 2014 budgets. Continue Reading
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News
14 Jan 2014
Big Data and Content Analytics: measuring the ROI
There is a high expectation for the potential value of big data analytics early adopters are achieving good results that are helping to drive decision making in the business, this survey of 340 technology professionals reveals. Continue Reading
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E-Zine
06 Jan 2014
IT giants go north for cool datacentres
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we look at why IT giants like Microsoft and Google are building datacentres in the Nordic region, and what benefits a similar move could bring to corporate CIOs. Windows XP support ends in just three months’ time – our buyer’s guide examines what you need to do if you’re still using the operating system. And the CIO of Ikea talks about the challenges of international multichannel retail. Read the issue now Continue Reading
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News
16 Dec 2013
Nvidia delivers GPU grid to power Citrix virtual workstations
Nvidia has released vGPU grid technology for Citrix XenDeskop and Xenserver to support remote, hardware accelerated graphics processing. Continue Reading
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Photo Story
09 Dec 2013
A trip to Microsoft's European Azure cloud datacentre in Dublin
Computer Weekly visits Microsoft's European datacentre in Dublin and speaks to its chief designer. Continue Reading
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E-Zine
09 Dec 2013
The most influential people in UK IT
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we reveal our annual list of the 50 most influential people in UK IT – the real movers and shakers driving the digital economy - and also select 10 rising stars to look out for in 2014. We look back at the big changes in the datacentre environment this year and assess what the future holds. And we examine the growing popularity of agile development and hear from experts on the latest best practices. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
06 Dec 2013
Chancellor George Osborne announces datacentre carbon tax break in Autumn Statement
George Osborne exempts datacentre operators from blanket carbon taxes in exchange for climate change agreements Continue Reading
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News
03 Dec 2013
Microsoft invests in Ireland datacentre
Microsoft is expanding its Dublin datacentre with a €170m investment Continue Reading
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News
03 Dec 2013
Virtualisation continues to drive European server purchases
TechTarget survey finds 97.3% of large organisations plan to expand their deployments in 2014, with consolidation the main driver Continue Reading
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Opinion
02 Dec 2013
Intel x86 and IBM Power CPUs: Which, when, why?
There are only three processors left in the market for mission-critical applications. Which should you chose ? Continue Reading
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Feature
28 Nov 2013
SMB 3.0 brings enterprise-class storage to Hyper-V deployments
SMB 3.0 is Microsoft’s replacement for the “chatty” CIFS file access storage protocol that offers enterprise-class storage to Hyper-V deployments Continue Reading
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News
26 Nov 2013
How web giants are making datacentres lean and green
Facebook and eBay infrastructure chiefs outline their efficiency strategies at DatacenterDynamics Converged conference in London Continue Reading
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News
19 Nov 2013
Investec CISO warns that legacy tapes will fail on new hardware
Many organisations may find that years of irreplaceable tape backups are inaccessible because modern machines cannot handle legacy format Continue Reading
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News
13 Nov 2013
AWS re: Invent 2013 kicks off in Las Vegas
Amazon Web Services' annual conference opens with product announcements to the 8,000 strong crowd during the keynote Continue Reading
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News
11 Nov 2013
Fear of cloud servers fading fast among UK firms
Research shows traditionally risk-averse UK firms are being persuaded by the benefits of co-location, with more than 20% of servers now outsourced Continue Reading
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News
05 Nov 2013
Business-defined storage will help reconnect businesses with IT, says Forrester
Business-defined storage and datacentres will make IT more business-centric, according to Forrester Continue Reading
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Photo Story
05 Nov 2013
How to build a data centre fire protection plan
Avoid a bonfire in your data centre with these tips on how to create a data centre fire protection plan. Continue Reading
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E-Zine
04 Nov 2013
Barcelona toasts the cream of VMworld
Another year and another Best of VMworld Europe User Awards. TechTarget hosted the awards, which took place during VMworld Europe for a fourth year. This year the ceremony took place in sunny Barcelona. In this month’s issue of CW Europe, read the top case studies and find out why Computer Weekly and searchserverVirtualization.com crowned them the winners. Continue Reading
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News
04 Nov 2013
Crown Hosting Service to save £530m from government IT bill by 2018
Government Digital Service to establish new Crown Hosting Service to consolidate hosting across Whitehall, saving £530m per year by 2018 Continue Reading
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E-Zine
04 Nov 2013
Windows Server 2012 R2 reviewed
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we look at the latest release of Microsoft’s market-leading Windows Server 2012 software, and assess its new features for improved cloud, virtualisation and device management. We visit Chinese networking giant Huawei to hear about its UK growth and how it hopes to tackle its business challenges over US security. And we look at the best ways to obtain financing for new IT purchases. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
29 Oct 2013
Study finds cloud computing the most valued enterprise IT skill
Cloud computing overtakes virtualisation, security, BI, database and project management as the most valued enterprise IT skill Continue Reading
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News
28 Oct 2013
Six tips to help you negotiate the best deal with your datacentre provider
Your willingness to negotiate can make a big difference to the deal you get, says Anthony Day, associate at law firm DLA Piper Continue Reading
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News
25 Oct 2013
Fulham football club address skills shortfall with cloud database
Fulham football club’s IT team moves its database infrastructure to the cloud with a database as a service implementation Continue Reading
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News
22 Oct 2013
Interview: Professor Ian Bitterlin, the Green Grid
Green Grid's Chair Ian Bitterlin discusses datacentre energy efficiency, role of DCIM tools and whether UK and EU CIOs are doing enough for datacentre efficiency Continue Reading
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Photo Story
22 Oct 2013
Best of VMworld Europe User Awards 2013 winners
The Best of VMworld Europe User Awards 2013 winners have been revealed. View pictures of the awards ceremony at VMworld Europe in Barcelona. Continue Reading
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News
21 Oct 2013
Lotus F1 Team invests in converged datacentre to support race strategy
Lotus F1 Team is about to go live with a converged datacentre infrastructure as it begins the development of a championship-winning car for 2015 Continue Reading
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Photo Story
18 Oct 2013
Microsoft Server 2012 R2: the OS for the hybrid cloud
Microsoft has released Windows Server 2012 R2, along with an R2 update to System Center 2012. Tim Anderson takes the new OS on a test drive. Continue Reading
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News
16 Oct 2013
Case study: Richard Branson's Virgin Management moves to IaaS platform
Virgin Management, a subsidiary of Virgin Group, has migrated its IT to a cloud-based IaaS platform for BYOD capabilities and savings Continue Reading
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News
14 Oct 2013
VMworld 2013: Hertz deploys thin clients using VMware across Europe
Car rental firm Hertz is using VMware to virtualise 4,000 PCs across its European operations Continue Reading
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News
11 Oct 2013
Case study: Sky Broadband looks to scale with Cisco
Sky Broadband ISP chooses Cisco’s new Network Convergence System (NCS) to meet the demand of its growing customer base Continue Reading
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News
09 Oct 2013
Modular datacentre cheaper than ‘bricks and mortar’ datacentre
A modular datacentre may cost an enterprise 14% less than a traditional datacentre, according to a research by DCD Intelligence Continue Reading
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Feature
08 Oct 2013
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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News
08 Oct 2013
Case study: Coca-Cola embarks on green IT strategy
Coca-Cola is aiming to reduce the carbon footprint of its IT. Kevin Sirjuesingh, director of IT strategic initiatives, discusses the plan Continue Reading
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News
07 Oct 2013
Driving Standards Agency updates WAN with MDNX
The government agency has revamped its WAN solution to link its datacentre through the PSN network to its driving test centres across the UK Continue Reading