Managing servers and operating systems
Get our news and technical advice on datacentre infrastructure, including how to make server hardware choices, using server management tools and how to select operating systems to create an energy-efficient, low-cost data centre environment. We cover rack-mount servers, blade servers, mainframe and Unix servers, Windows Server, Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, other operating systems and more.
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News
22 May 2025
How to tackle your infrastructure technical debt
Gartner analysts explain how infrastructure and operations teams can address the accumulation of outdated systems and make a compelling business case for upgrades Continue Reading
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News
21 May 2025
Red Hat touts OpenShift Virtualization momentum
Enterprises are increasingly adopting Red Hat’s OpenShift Virtualization, driven by Broadcom’s VMware licensing changes and a desire for a stable, AI-ready platform, company executives revealed at the Red Hat Summit this week Continue Reading
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Opinion
11 Apr 2022
Building distributed systems requires effective developer teams
Technologies edge computing and containerisation call for teams capable of building distributed systems Continue Reading
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Feature
11 Apr 2022
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
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News
04 Apr 2022
Environmental campaigners halt Meta datacentre construction in the Netherlands
Datacentre being built to serve ‘metaverse’ worlds would consume nearly half as much energy as all other datacentres in the country Continue Reading
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News
29 Mar 2022
Rising energy costs blamed as UK arm of colocation firm Sungard AS enters administration
Financial difficulties caused by downturn in demand for its services during the pandemic, coupled with ‘unprecedented’ energy price rises, force Sungard AS into administration in the UK Continue Reading
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News
25 Mar 2022
Telehouse’s takeover of Thomson Reuters Docklands datacentre brings more colo capacity to London
Telehouse has hailed the buildout of its fifth datacentre in the London Docklands area as its most ambitious development to date Continue Reading
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Definition
23 Mar 2022
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is an enterprise Linux operating system (OS) developed by Red Hat for the business market. Continue Reading
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Opinion
17 Mar 2022
Monitoring performance in a hybrid cloud world
The growing use of cloud demands a new breed of monitoring and observability tools to keep track of how cloud-native applications and services perform Continue Reading
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Feature
16 Mar 2022
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
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News
09 Mar 2022
Public sector warned about ‘environmentally unsustainable’ SSD disposal processes
Research from data sanitisation firm Blancco shines a light on the costly and contradictory stance that government IT managers have when it comes to disposing of old solid state drives Continue Reading
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Feature
07 Mar 2022
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
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Feature
02 Mar 2022
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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News
28 Feb 2022
British Airways outage: Airline cancels weekend short-haul flights due to ‘technical issues’
Passengers due to fly with British Airways on Saturday 26 February were faced with flight cancellations and baggage handling issues because of unspecified ‘technical issues’ Continue Reading
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News
21 Feb 2022
Website owners urged to adopt ‘eco-standard’ to help cut internet-generated carbon emissions
The Eco-Friendly Web Alliance has set its sights on preventing a further 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide being generated in the next decade by helping website operators to cut emissions Continue Reading
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News
16 Feb 2022
Interview: How do you define IBM?
It is the world’s oldest computer company, and it was once said you didn’t get fired for buying from Big Blue. But a lot has changed. Sreeram Visvanathan, CEO for UK&I, explains how IBM is reinventing itself Continue Reading
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News
16 Feb 2022
Uptime Institute to help financial services organisations reduce infrastructure outage risks
Datacentre resiliency think-tank is launching a programme to help financial services organisations reduce the risk of outages happening within their hybrid infrastructure setups Continue Reading
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News
15 Feb 2022
Nebulon gets Ansible collection for datacentre deployment
Provider of cloud-managed and hardware-accelerated – formerly ‘cloud-defined’ – storage makes further moves towards its smartInfrastructure vision, with Terraform support coming Continue Reading
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Definition
09 Feb 2022
Unix
Unix -- trademarked as UNIX -- is a multiuser, multitasking operating system (OS) designed for flexibility and adaptability. Continue Reading
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Blog Post
10 Jan 2022
Is the commodity server bandwagon running out of steam?
The term “paradigm shift” gets flung about far too much in IT, but we may be at one of those few times that genuinely deserves it. For decades now, specialised hardware devices have been losing ... Continue Reading
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Feature
07 Jan 2022
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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Feature
06 Jan 2022
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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Definition
06 Jan 2022
Cygwin
Cygwin is a collection of open source tools that allows Unix or Linux applications to be compiled and run on a Microsoft Windows operating system (OS) from within a Linux-like interface. Continue Reading
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Definition
29 Nov 2021
swap file (swap space or page file)
A swap file is a system file that creates temporary storage space on a solid-state drive or hard disk when the system runs low on memory. Continue Reading
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Definition
19 Nov 2021
Ctrl-Alt-Delete
On a personal computer with the Microsoft Windows operating system, Control+Alt+Delete is the combination of the Ctrl key, the Alt key, and Del key that a user can press at the same time to terminate an application task or to reboot the operating system. Continue Reading
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News
12 Oct 2021
Siemens Energy plots multi-petabyte datacentre migration with Google Cloud
Energy technology company Siemens Energy is to downsize its datacentre footprint with an ambitious plan to move 2.6 petabytes of its business data to Google Cloud over 15 months Continue Reading
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News
06 Oct 2021
VMworld 2021: VMware CEO fleshes out and refines company’s enterprise multi-cloud strategy
VMware’s new CEO, Raghu Raghuram, uses the VMworld 2021 keynote to set out the company’s expanded take on the meaning of multi-cloud Continue Reading
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Feature
29 Sep 2021
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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News
27 Sep 2021
Private equity cash fuels Nordic datacentre growth
Private equity companies are betting on the Nordic datacentre sector as demand for services in the region accelerates Continue Reading
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News
02 Sep 2021
HPE signs 10-year GreenLake HPC deal worth $2bn with US National Security Agency
The US National Security Agency has enlisted the help of HPE and its GreenLake platform to aid the delivery of its data management strategy Continue Reading
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News
31 Aug 2021
The Raxio Group sets out Pan-African colocation datacentre expansion plans
Pan-African datacentre developer The Raxio Group has embarked on a collaboration that will pave the way for it to increase its colocation footprint within the continent Continue Reading
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News
12 Aug 2021
Regulatory complexity hinders cloud adoption by financial services firms, Google study finds
Business leaders within the financial services space reveal details of what is holding up cloud adoption within their industry in latest Google poll Continue Reading
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News
10 Aug 2021
Researchers uncover database with 126 million unsecured records
Business-to-business marketing firm OneMoreLead was storing tens of millions of records in an unsecured database, exposing at least 63 million people to fraud, identify theft and phishing campaigns Continue Reading
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Feature
06 Aug 2021
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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Definition
26 Jul 2021
preboot execution environment (PXE)
Preboot execution environment (PXE), pronounced pixie, is a set of standards that enables a computer to load an operating system (OS) over a network connection. Continue Reading
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News
19 Jul 2021
Kao Data claims UK first with push to ditch diesel for biofuel in datacentre backup generators
Harlow-based colocation player claims its on course to become the first datacentre operator in the UK to ditch diesel in favour of biofuel in its backup power generators Continue Reading
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News
14 Jul 2021
Windows 365: Microsoft unveils the era of the cloud PC
Expanding its cloud offerings, Microsoft has simplified Azure Virtual Desktops with a new way to access Windows on any device Continue Reading
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News
08 Jul 2021
Kaseya apologises for extended downtime after ransom attack
CEO of Kaseya apologises after pushing back the restoration of the firm’s VSA service following a REvil ransomware attack Continue Reading
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News
06 Jul 2021
The Cambridge-1 switch-on: UK’s most powerful supercomputer goes live
The UK's most powerful supercomputer has gone live, with Nvidia talking up its potential to transform artificial intelligence-based healthcare research around the world Continue Reading
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News
16 Jun 2021
Singapore universities to develop cooling solutions for tropical datacentres
The National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University will research on cooling technologies that help to lower the power consumption and carbon footprint of topical datacentres Continue Reading
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Feature
01 Jun 2021
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
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News
13 May 2021
VMware names Raghu Raghuram as CEO to guide company through Dell Technologies spin-off
Several months on from the departure of ex-VMware chief Pat Gelsinger, the virtualisation giant names Raghu Raghuram as his permanent successor Continue Reading
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News
29 Apr 2021
Intel seeks broader platform play with Ice Lake
Company is counting on performance improvements from its third-generation Xeon ‘Ice Lake’ chip and its broader platform strategy to regain its mojo in the market Continue Reading
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News
28 Apr 2021
Red Hat eyes edge computing workloads
Open-source juggernaut has enriched its enterprise Linux and OpenShift offerings to support edge computing workloads better Continue Reading
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E-Zine
27 Apr 2021
Justice at last in Post Office IT scandal
In this week’s Computer Weekly, 12 years after we broke the story, victims of the Post Office IT scandal finally have their criminal convictions overturned. We take a virtual tour of a Microsoft datacentre and meet a server called ‘Mega-Godzilla Beast’. And we find out how technology is transforming Nationwide Building Society. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
15 Apr 2021
VMware CTO: The days of enterprises going ‘all-in’ on one public cloud provider ‘are dead’
VMware-hosted panel debate about enterprise public cloud adoption trends charts the apparent demise of CIOs plotting large-scale, multi-year moves to a single supplier’s public cloud environment Continue Reading
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News
08 Apr 2021
The OVHCloud fire: Assessing the after-effects on datacentre operators and cloud users
One month on from the OVHCloud datacentre fire, it is time to assess the lasting impact the event might have on the way server farm operators run their facilities, and cloud users approach disaster recovery Continue Reading
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News
18 Mar 2021
Survey: Backup failures hit a high as pandemic working hits home
Veeam survey finds distributed working plus operations that span on-prem and the cloud the background to high numbers of failures in backup and restore, with 40% of SLAs not met Continue Reading
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News
15 Mar 2021
Research: Continuous upgrades to datacentre virtualisation setups key to curbing carbon emissions
A VMware-commissioned report by Aurora Energy Research highlights environmental benefits that can be attained by operators taking steps to continually improve their datacentre virtualisation setups Continue Reading
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News
11 Mar 2021
Tableau Software opens UK cloud region in London
Data visualisation software provider launches London region for Tableau Online users to access locally hosted version of its cloud platform Continue Reading
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News
11 Mar 2021
OVHcloud datacentre fire: Efforts underway to bring affected cloud customers back online
OVHcloud confirms it is has reserved capacity at other datacentres, and is preparing to ramp up in-house production of its servers to bring its customers back online as soon as possible Continue Reading
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Feature
04 Mar 2021
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
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Feature
04 Mar 2021
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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News
26 Feb 2021
Amsterdam to open environmental talks with datacentres
City authorities and datacentre operators will open dialogue about sustainable datacentre industry expansion in the Dutch capital Continue Reading
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Feature
22 Feb 2021
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
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21 Feb 2021
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
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News
11 Feb 2021
HPE on the ISS: In space, no one can hear your CPU fans
In The Martian, Matt Damon is stranded on Mars, and his comms link is so slow that it takes almost an hour to have a conversation. Now HPE is going into orbit Continue Reading
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News
10 Feb 2021
Ducati and Lenovo extend long-standing MotoGP technology deal
Ducati and Lenovo have signed another three-year deal that will see the MotoGP team dig deeper into its technology partner's product portfolio in pursuit of performance gains on the track by embracing virtual desktops, HPC and edge computing Continue Reading
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News
03 Feb 2021
Google grows cloud sales as parent’s profits top $40bn
Alphabet announces massive overall profits and increased Google cloud sales Continue Reading
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Feature
27 Jan 2021
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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News
26 Jan 2021
Kao Data signs AI-focused life sciences startup InstaDeep as a customer
Harlow-based colocation provider continues to build out its roster of HPC and life sciences customers Continue Reading
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News
29 Dec 2020
Top 10 datacentre stories of 2020
Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 datacentre stories of 2020 Continue Reading
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Blog Post
28 Oct 2020
Mind your assets
If there is one constant that seems to be an ailment of the tech sector it is the fact that the same problems seem to crop up time and time again. “Never reinvent the wheel,” as the saying goes. ... Continue Reading
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Feature
19 Oct 2020
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
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News
13 Oct 2020
Suppliers neglecting virtual appliance security, putting users at risk
Software suppliers are often distributing their products on virtual appliances that contain known vulnerabilities or are running outdated or unsupported operating systems, according to a report Continue Reading
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News
13 Oct 2020
DBS to deploy IBM z15 mainframes
Singapore’s DBS Bank has signed a seven-year deal with IBM to run and modernise mission-critical applications on z15 mainframes Continue Reading
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News
07 Oct 2020
Carhartt shifts old data to the cloud with Komprise
US-based workwear manufacturer cuts storage costs from $1 to $0.25 per gigabyte as it deploys data management software and shifts old files to Microsoft Azure Blob and Cold storage Continue Reading
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News
29 Sep 2020
Red Hat rivals VMware and Nutanix with hyper-converged OCS 4.5
Red Hat’s OpenShift 4.5 extended container orchestration to virtual machines. The arrival of OCS 4.5 moves the solution into the realm of hyper-converged systems Continue Reading
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Feature
25 Aug 2020
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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News
17 Aug 2020
Comms startup Element helps support secure communications during pandemic
With the huge increase in remote working, Element is using an open, decentralised network to give organisations more control over their communications Continue Reading
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Feature
12 Aug 2020
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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News
05 Aug 2020
Egypt’s datacentre plans take key step forward
Government lays the foundations for a datacentre industry with its new data protection law Continue Reading
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News
05 Aug 2020
Inside Juniper’s radical IT transformation
Western Australia’s aged care provider Juniper embarked on an aggressive strategy to completely transform its IT operations in just two years Continue Reading
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News
22 Jul 2020
Inside Intel’s transition into an enterprise tech company
Computing giant Intel is pushing deeper into the enterprise with investments in data-centric and emerging technologies along with partnerships with local firms to develop new solutions Continue Reading
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News
18 Jun 2020
EU-backed bid to build data preservation cloud for European research community gathers pace
The Archiver project, which aims to create a hybrid cloud-based data preservation environment for scientific researchers across Europe, has named the ICT suppliers in the running to deliver on its vision Continue Reading
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News
18 Jun 2020
Datacentre investment boost as Norway’s government reinstates tax relief
Government reinstates datacentre energy tax relief for cryptocurrency mining organisations after investments in the country’s datacentres drops Continue Reading
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News
10 Jun 2020
Unsecured Elasticsearch server breached in eight hours flat
Comparitech’s Bob Diachenko wanted to find out how long it would take for hackers to find and attack an unsecured, public internet-facing database, so he set up a honeypot Continue Reading
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News
09 Jun 2020
Netherlands digital sector yearns for government recognition
The sector building and supporting the Netherlands’ digital infrastructure wants to be valued as highly as Schiphol airport and the port of Rotterdam are for the Dutch economy Continue Reading
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News
03 Jun 2020
How Australia’s Shockbyte scales with cloud
Australian game server provider Shockbyte uses bare metal servers on the cloud to meet the needs of demanding gaming applications and to grow its global footprint Continue Reading
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News
29 May 2020
How Sega Europe slashed incident response times using cloud SIEM
Gaming company’s SOC radically improves its operational efficiency with Sumo Logic’s cloud SIEM service Continue Reading
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News
19 May 2020
GitLab makes foray into Southeast Asia
GitLab expands in Southeast Asia with a Singapore presence to shore up its growing footprint across the Asia-Pacific region Continue Reading
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News
18 May 2020
Swedish mining firm LKAB revamps data backup setup to support downtime avoidance goals
State-owned Swedish mining company LKAB scooped the prize for Best Data Security and Data Protection Project at the Best of VMworld 2019 Europe User Awards. Here we run through what the project involved Continue Reading
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News
07 May 2020
IBM Think puts AI to use in IT operations
Its annual conference may be virtual, but IBM has remained focused on the key themes of hybrid IT, cloud and artificial intelligence Continue Reading
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News
30 Apr 2020
Critical SaltStack vulnerability affects thousands of datacentres
Critical vulnerabilities in the Salt remote task and configuration framework enable hackers to take control of cloud servers and must be patched right away Continue Reading
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News
22 Apr 2020
Google creates datacentre task scheduler to limit non-urgent work to peak renewable energy periods
Google lifts lid on how it is using forecast data to ensure non-urgent compute workloads within its datacentres are carried out at peak supply times for renewable energy Continue Reading
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News
24 Mar 2020
Hyperscale cloud firms ‘well-insulated from coronavirus crisis’, claims Synergy Research
With businesses and consumers increasingly turning to online and cloud-based services to access work and leisure resources, Synergy Research predicts the hyperscale datacentre operators should be well-positioned to “ride out” the coronavirus crisis Continue Reading
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Feature
23 Mar 2020
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
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News
18 Mar 2020
Covid-19: Uptime Institute advises operators to suspend non-essential datacentre projects
Datacentre resiliency think-tank issues 18-page guidance to help operators protect staff during the coronavirus pandemic while keeping their facilities ticking over Continue Reading
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Feature
12 Mar 2020
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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News
10 Mar 2020
University of Hertfordshire and Goonhilly hail deep learning-led UK mapping data breakthrough
Tech tie-up paves the way for creation of UK mapping data that is free from cloud cover for the first time Continue Reading
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Feature
02 Mar 2020
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
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News
27 Feb 2020
IT Priorities 2020: ASEAN firms on the frontline of digital transformation
Southeast Asian companies plan to spend more on infrastructure and cyber security, but the growth in IT budgets appears to be slowing down Continue Reading
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Feature
12 Feb 2020
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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News
29 Jan 2020
Inside DXC Technology’s APAC playbook
DXC Technology’s CTO for Asia-Pacific talks up efforts to support the region’s enterprises that are in varying stages of digital transformation Continue Reading
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News
20 Jan 2020
Modern telecoms has opened up Sweden’s far north
Modern telecom infrastructures mean datacentres can be further away from users, and environmental and cost advantages are to be had in locations such as Sweden’s far north Continue Reading
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News
14 Jan 2020
What is behind Stockholm’s datacentre boom?
Datacentres are springing up in Stockholm – but what is drawing major IT companies to the Swedish capital? Continue Reading
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E-Zine
07 Jan 2020
Digital fashion for sustainable consumption
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we look at fashion for online personas, report on a programme to get more young women into cyber security, and examine edge computing as the new data frontier and how cloud-native platforms and AI might transform the datacentre. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
27 Dec 2019
Top 10 datacentre stories of 2019
Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 datacentre stories of 2019 Continue Reading
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News
04 Dec 2019
AWS fleshes out edge computing strategy with hyper-local datacentre hubs planned in major cities
Amazon Web Services (AWS) plans to supplement its ‘mega’ datacentre regions with smaller cloud data processing hubs in major cities to support enterprises requiring low-latency connections to its compute and storage resources Continue Reading
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News
04 Dec 2019
AWS Outposts debuts in Australia
Amazon Web Services rolls out Outposts in Australia, enabling enterprises to run a consistent version of the AWS platform at locations that require low latency Continue Reading
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News
05 Nov 2019
Best of VMworld 2019 Europe User Awards: The winners
Find out who won what, including the best of show prize, at the 2019 VMworld Europe User Awards in Barcelona Continue Reading
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Opinion
01 Nov 2019
Security Think Tank: In the cloud, the buck stops with you
Misconfigured cloud environments are increasingly identified as the source of damaging data breaches and leaks, raising serious questions for enterprises. Where does responsibility for data security in the cloud lie, and how can security professionals best work with their teams and cloud providers to resolve the problem? Continue Reading