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.

Feature 09 Feb 2024
The rising prominence of hybrid cloud in the Nordics

Many Nordic organisations have opted for hybrid cloud environments, subscribing to the newest services without giving up what they already have. Best practices are beginning to emerge for managing the heterogenous environment Continue Reading
News 08 Feb 2024
Swedish CIO contributes best practices for ethical use of artificial intelligence

IT leaders are scrambling to keep up with AI technology, but many are losing sight of its ethical impact – and what CIOs need to do to ensure responsible use Continue Reading

Feature 28 Sep 2023

Cloud NAS, what is it good for?

We look at NAS file access storage, how it works, what it’s good for and the possibilities to access storage for files and unstructured data in the public cloud Continue Reading
Feature 26 Sep 2023

IBM reorients to offset historic storage hardware decline

Storage profile: We look at IBM and the strategic shifts it has made towards the cloud, cloud-native and as-a-service offerings that aim to reverse a long-term decline in revenues Continue Reading
Definition 26 Sep 2023

vertical SaaS (software as a service)

Vertical SaaS describes a type of software as a service solution created for a specific industry, such as retail, financial services, insurance, healthcare or manufacturing. Continue Reading
News 26 Sep 2023

Kubernetes storage: It’s object or nothing for MinIO

SAN and NAS are finished in the age of the cloud when it comes to cloud-native Kubernetes storage, according to container-focused object storage maker MinIO Continue Reading
E-Zine 26 Sep 2023

Preparing for post-quantum cryptography

In this week’s Computer Weekly, our latest buyer’s guide assesses the challenges for cryptography in the emerging era of quantum computing. Google Cloud experts explain how the internet giant is preparing its datacentres for a world of AI. And we examine the privacy, compliance and backup issues from generative AI. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
News 25 Sep 2023

Amazon takes $4bn minority stake in AI safety research startup Anthropic

Amazon Web Services (AWS) will build on its existing ties to the firm to help it scale its enterprise-grade large language model (LLM) Claude Continue Reading
News 25 Sep 2023

How Liverpool FC is tapping cloud and data analytics

Liverpool Football Club is leveraging data analytics and cloud technology to improve fan engagement and enable its media production team to work more efficiently Continue Reading
News 22 Sep 2023

How ready does the world need to be for the quantum era?

Great use cases may exist for quantum computing, but no one knows for sure how long they will need to wait for a production-ready machine Continue Reading
News 21 Sep 2023

Cisco snaps up Splunk in $28bn application observability deal

The acquisition builds out Cisco’s observability portfolio, with AI-based full-stack observability for hybrid cloud environments Continue Reading
News 20 Sep 2023

Rishi Sunak under fire from UK tech stakeholders over revision of net-zero policies

The prime minister has seen his decision to tweak and revise several policies that underpin the UK's net-zero goals criticised for potentially stunting the growth of the clean tech sector Continue Reading
News 20 Sep 2023

Datacentre operators ‘hesitant’ over how to proceed with server farm builds as AI hype builds

As the hype surrounding artificial intelligence enters a new phase with the rising enterprise and hyperscale interest in generative AI, operators are not sure how to proceed with new datacentre builds, it is claimed Continue Reading
Feature 20 Sep 2023

Toyota car plant outage shows database capacity planning is vital

How could database deletes and re-organisation take out car production for 36 hours at 14 plants? We drill down into the details of database capacity planning Continue Reading
News 20 Sep 2023

How Google is priming its infrastructure for the AI wave

The technology giant is integrating purpose-built hardware with an optimised software stack to meet the heightened computational demands of next-generation AI workloads Continue Reading
News 19 Sep 2023

38TB Microsoft data leak highlights risks of oversharing

An accidentally disclosed SAS token with excessive privileges enabled researchers to access nearly 40TB of Microsoft’s data, highlighting the risks of privilege mismanagement and oversharing Continue Reading
News 19 Sep 2023

Cosmetics giant L'Oréal turns to Databricks for cloud data-led customer personalisation push

The cosmetics giant is building on its past work with Databricks to provide more personalised care to its customers across the globe Continue Reading
E-Zine 19 Sep 2023

Securing Eurovision’s online voting system against cyber attacks

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we discover how Once.net and Cloudfare defended the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest against cyber attacks. Our buyer’s guide continues to look at integrating software-as-a-service applications, with the governance of SaaS connectivity to the fore. Also, HCLTech’s Ashish Gupta relates how the company has embraced a new, pandemic-influenced, remote working model. And we find out how retail tech leaders influence their boards on transformation projects. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
Definition 18 Sep 2023

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive is a legislative act that the European Union adopted to address the growing amounts of e-waste that come from electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) at the end of its life. Continue Reading
Definition 18 Sep 2023

Salesforce DX

Salesforce DX, or SFDX, is a set of software development tools that lets developers build, test and ship many kinds of applications on the Salesforce Platform. Continue Reading
Feature 18 Sep 2023

Simplifying cloud integrations with legacy IT

Subscription-based software is easier to integrate than traditional enterprise software, but the challenge for IT leaders is governance for SaaS connectivity Continue Reading
News 15 Sep 2023

Microsoft to offer Oracle cloud database on Azure

Oracle and Microsoft have trumpeted an expansion of their joint activity with the launch of Oracle Database@Azure. Microsoft will be the only other hyperscaler to offer OCI services Continue Reading
News 15 Sep 2023

OVHcloud debuts ‘comprehensive’ carbon calculator for customers

French IaaS challenger OVHcloud has launched a tool to help its customers track their Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions Continue Reading
News 15 Sep 2023

Dunelm's journey to micro front ends

We find out how Dunelm has modernised its platform and web development with in-house ecommerce and serverless systems Continue Reading
14 Sep 2023

OVHcloud opens India datacentre

The French cloud service provider has opened its first datacentre in India Continue Reading
14 Sep 2023

How STT GDC is cracking the Philippines datacentre market

The joint venture is building its largest datacentre in the Philippines among other efforts to meet the needs of an underserved market Continue Reading
14 Sep 2023

How APAC organisations can drive IT sustainability

Stephen Withers looks at how organisations across the region are redoubling their efforts around sustainability Continue Reading
E-Zine 14 Sep 2023

CW APAC – Trend Watch: Datacentre sustainability

Sustainability targets are becoming more pertinent than ever. In this handbook, focused on datacentres in the Asia-Pacific region, Computer Weekly looks at how firms are approaching the topic, why STT GDC is building its largest datacentre in the Philippines, OVHCloud’s India project and the impact of generative AI. Continue Reading
Definition 14 Sep 2023

Docker

Docker is an open source software platform used to create, deploy and manage virtualized application containers on a common operating system (OS), with an ecosystem of allied tools. Continue Reading
News 14 Sep 2023

Bristol Uni to host one of Europe’s most power supercomputer clusters

A high-performance computer system being built at the University of Bristol will run thousands of GPUs to support research in artificial intelligence and scientific discovery Continue Reading
News 13 Sep 2023

GitHub fixes race condition that could have led to ‘repojacking’

A subtle flaw in how GitHub handled repository creation and user renaming could have had serious consequences for the open source community, but has now been fixed. Learn more about how it worked Continue Reading
News 13 Sep 2023

Cisco tightens link between observability and security

The company's observability platform now offers a way for IT decision-makers to understand the impact of security issues Continue Reading
News 11 Sep 2023

HMRC signs cloud-focused £4.4m mainframe management and modernisation deal with Kyndryl

The government tax collection agency is continuing its move to the cloud, but needs some help readying its mainframe estate for migration Continue Reading
News 11 Sep 2023

Huawei launches OceanStor Pacific 9920 entry-level NAS

Huawei adds to its OceanStor Pacific NAS family, offering entry-level 9920 with up to 92TB per node which can be combined into clusters and also used as a SAN device Continue Reading
News 11 Sep 2023

Salesforce and Zoom embrace ethical hackers. You should, too

Software companies Salesforce and Zoom discuss their successful bug bounty programmes, what they learned at a recent in-person hackathon in which they participated, and why others shouldn’t be scared of hackers Continue Reading
Feature 11 Sep 2023

Complexity challenges of pandemic hangover could lead to SaaS hysteria

The deployment of software-as-a-service applications during the Covid-19 pandemic has increased enterprise IT complexity Continue Reading
Definition 08 Sep 2023

virtual CPU (vCPU)

A virtual CPU (vCPU) is the processor of a virtual machine (VM). Continue Reading
Blog Post 08 Sep 2023

Why AI’s growth makes datacentre sustainability more important than ever

In this guest post, Danny Quinn, managing director of datacentre services provider DataVita, assesses the environmental impact of artificial intelligence from a server farm perspective The ... Continue Reading
News 08 Sep 2023

Executive interview: Richard Moulds, Amazon Braket

We speak to Richard Moulds, who heads up Amazon’s Braket quantum computing services, about how the technology is progressing Continue Reading
Feature 08 Sep 2023

SME disaster recovery: Five key points to consider

We look at key DR considerations for SMEs, including RPOs, RTOs, infrastructure needed for effective continuity and the right combination of cloud and in-house provision Continue Reading
News 07 Sep 2023

Node4 helps performing arts charity revamp staff home working setup with IT infrastructure overhaul

Managed cloud services provider Node4 opens up about the work it has done to help make it easier for one of its long-standing clients to embrace remote working Continue Reading
News 07 Sep 2023

IT leaders ‘oblivious’ to the environmental impact of ‘unwanted’ data, research shows

Research commissioned by IT infrastructure services provider NTT reveals knowledge gaps among IT leaders regarding the environmental footprint of their data storage estates Continue Reading
Feature 07 Sep 2023

CXL in the datacentre: Boosting memory for hungry workloads

We look at CXL, how it revolutionises connectivity between memory components, potentially saves energy, and adds oomph to heavily memory-dependent workloads such as AI analytics Continue Reading
News 07 Sep 2023

Microsoft finds Storm-0558 exploited crash dump to steal signing key

Microsoft has published new information on how the Chinese state threat actor Storm-0558 was able to exploit a rare race condition following a crash dump in order to acquire a consumer signing key Continue Reading
News 07 Sep 2023

Mainframe remains a positive force among IT leaders

BMC’s annual survey of mainframe users finds there is continued demand, but some are concerned over DevOps tooling Continue Reading
News 06 Sep 2023

Schneider Electric: Business leaders deprioritise green goals due to economic pressure

Research from energy management giant Schneider Electric reveals how events like the 2021 energy crisis have altered the investment priorities of enterprises towards green issues Continue Reading
News 06 Sep 2023

Orange and Huawei seek platform opportunity in Saudi Arabia

Business services arm of leading operator and global communications technology provider cut key deals for internet of things, smart cities and cloud infrastructure in increasingly important part of EMEA region Continue Reading
News 06 Sep 2023

TikTok opens Irish datacentre in push to safeguard European user data

Social media giant TikTok has completed the first of two datacentre builds it has under development in Ireland Continue Reading
Feature 05 Sep 2023

HPE storage comes with full IT stack, hybrid cloud and as a service

Storage profile: We look at HPE, its Alletra storage refresh, and Greenlake and the ways the company is re-branding as a full-stack provider across on-prem and hybrid cloud Continue Reading
News 05 Sep 2023

Colocation market ready to cash in on rising interest in enterprise AI

IT market watcher Omdia has tipped the colocation market to be one of the main beneficiaries of the growing demand for enterprise AI services Continue Reading
News 05 Sep 2023

Researchers find flaw in Mend.io security platform

WithSecure’s research team uncovered an authentication flaw in an application security platform developed by Mend.io, which has now been fixed Continue Reading
Feature 05 Sep 2023

Tackling Scope 3 emissions in materials to help meet datacentre climate goals

Fanciful carbon accounting practice might not help much with emissions reduction, but specific materials values are already on offer from steel makers and the like that can assist datacentre operators Continue Reading
Feature 05 Sep 2023

Going cloud-native: How to develop better cloud apps

Cloud apps do not always perform as desired – and there are multiple contributing factors, from resource gaps to blind spots and poor planning. Continue Reading
News 05 Sep 2023

VMware builds vSAN Max, consolidates multicloud and online deployment

VMware launches new iteration of vSAN Max with up to 8.6PB of independently scalable storage, NSX gets a “+” as it unifies networks and Ransomware Recovery ups efficiency Continue Reading
Feature 05 Sep 2023

How APAC organisations can drive IT sustainability

From using liquid cooling and optimising data storage to tapping renewable energy and recycling tape drives, organisations across the region are upping their sustainability efforts Continue Reading
News 05 Sep 2023

The National Television Awards uses Hyve Managed Hosting to support website voting system

For the fourth year in a row, Hyve Managed Hosting has been the hosting provider of choice to the National Television Awards Continue Reading
E-Zine 05 Sep 2023

Met Police data platform goes £64m over budget

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we reveal a £64m cost over-run for the Metropolitan Police’s new record management system – and the thousands of support requests it’s caused. Our latest buyer’s guide looks at the issues around integrating software-as-a-service applications. And a leading flash storage firm says the age of spinning disk drives is almost over – are they right? Read the issue now Continue Reading
Feature 04 Sep 2023

The challenges of integrating SaaS applications

SaaS has grown from a handful of applications to a vast market covering almost every type of business task. We look at the integration challenges Continue Reading
Podcast 01 Sep 2023

Digital service: A Computer Weekly Downtime Upload podcast

We speak to Harmeen Mehta, chief digital innovation officer at BT, about service management in digital transformation Continue Reading
News 31 Aug 2023

Scottish government readies cloud platform to aid public sector take-up of AWS and Microsoft Azure

Details of a launch event for the Scottish government's push to encourage wider use of public cloud services by public sector organisations have emerged Continue Reading
News 31 Aug 2023

GenAI outranks cloud as business IT strategic priority

Enterprise Strategy Group research on the use cases for generative AI shows it as strategic for corporate IT, with impacts on customer experience, software development and IT Ops Continue Reading
News 30 Aug 2023

Google Cloud gunning for enterprise growth with generative AI push

This year's Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco has seen the company announce a slew of generative AI-focused products and services Continue Reading
News 30 Aug 2023

NCSC warns over possible AI prompt injection attacks

The UK’s NCSC says it sees alarming potential for so-called prompt injection attacks driven by the large language models that power AI chatbots Continue Reading
News 30 Aug 2023

Google Cloud ups ante in generative AI

Google CEO Sundar Pichai kicked off Google Cloud Next 2023 by underscoring the company’s efforts to make generative AI tools more accessible to businesses and workers Continue Reading
Definition 29 Aug 2023

critical infrastructure

Critical infrastructure is the collection of systems, networks and public works that a government considers essential to its functioning and safety of its citizens. Continue Reading
News 24 Aug 2023

Google bets on AI-backed cyber controls for Workspace users

Zero-trust and digital sovereignty controls are the focus of a series of enhancements being made for Google Workspace users Continue Reading
News 24 Aug 2023

AWS debuts Dedicated Local Zones with Singapore government as first customer

The new offering will be fully managed by AWS, built for exclusive use by a customer or community, and placed in a customer-specified location or datacentre Continue Reading
Definition 22 Aug 2023

floating-point operations per second (FLOPS)

Floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) is a measure of a computer's performance based on the number of floating-point arithmetic calculations that the processor can perform within a second. Continue Reading
News 22 Aug 2023

CBRE forecasts rise in European colocation capacity in H2 despite power supply constraints

Real estate consultancy CBRE's latest European colocation market tracker report suggests the second half of 2023 will be a big one in terms of supply and take-up of datacentre capacity Continue Reading
News 21 Aug 2023

Red Hat CEO on AI moves and source code kerfuffle

Matt Hicks talks up Red Hat’s efforts to support generative AI adoption through OpenShift AI and weighs in on the issues surrounding the company’s decision to limit access to RHEL source code Continue Reading
News 21 Aug 2023

UK competition watchdog gives Broadcom-VMware deal green light to go ahead

After several months of deliberation, the UK Competition and Markets Authority has concluded its investigation into Broadcom's $61bn bid to acquire VMware Continue Reading
News 21 Aug 2023

Simplyblock targets ‘complex’ Ceph with software-defined NVMe

German startup Simplyblock aims to deliver low-cost high-performance flash and NVMe-over-TCP storage for service provider customers, and has Ceph deployments in its sights Continue Reading
News 17 Aug 2023

NUHS taps LLM to boost productivity, patient care

Healthcare professionals at Singapore’s National University Health System can now summarise patient case notes and predict patient healthcare journeys using a large language model trained by a supercomputer Continue Reading
News 16 Aug 2023

AI is the most hyped technology of 2023

Gartner's 2023 hype cycle puts generative AI at the peak of inflated expectations in its latest analysis of emerging tech trends Continue Reading
News 15 Aug 2023

Nutanix GPT-in-a-Box aims hyper-converged at AI/ML use cases

Nutanix targets a pre-configured bundle of AI/ML and GPT software with hyper-converged infrastructure and GPT to help organisations safely take advantage of learning networks Continue Reading
15 Aug 2023

Is the UK datacentre industry set for further consolidation?

Turbulent times make it tricky to predict which way markets will jump, yet UK datacentres continue to grow and hold investor attention. Continue Reading
News 14 Aug 2023

US Cyber Board to probe cloud security after latest Exchange hack

CSRB review of cloud security comes in the wake of a major Chinese cyber attack on US government bodies orchestrated through Microsoft’s cloud services Continue Reading
Definition 14 Aug 2023

power factor correction (PFC)

Power factor correction (PFC) is the set of mechanisms built into a power supply circuit to raise the power factor (PF). Continue Reading
News 12 Aug 2023

Datacentre management vulnerabilities leave public clouds at risk

At the annual DEF CON hacking convention, researchers from Trellix have disclosed multiple vulnerabilities in key datacentre products underpinning the world’s public cloud infrastructure Continue Reading
Blog Post 11 Aug 2023

The future of sustainable datacentres

In this guest post, David Gammie, CTO at iomart, sets out the role that smaller cloud provider can play in leading the way on green issues in the datacentre market It’s no secret that datacentre ... Continue Reading
News 10 Aug 2023

Implications of SAP Rise premium strategy

SAP dropped a bombshell during its second-quarter 2023 results call that will negatively impact those using S/4Hana on-premise or through a hosted service provider Continue Reading
Definition 09 Aug 2023

VMware snapshot

A VMware snapshot is a copy of a virtual machine (VM) in a VMware environment taken at a specific point in time. Continue Reading
News 09 Aug 2023

AI interview: Krystal Kauffman, lead organiser, Turkopticon

Remote Mechanical Turk workers are responsible for training artificial intelligence algorithms and completing other data-related business processes - we hear about the workplace issues they face Continue Reading
Feature 09 Aug 2023

Huawei a big storage hitter despite international troubles

Huawei is a leading storage player with an enterprise product offer across file, block and object storage, and the cloud, despite controversy and trading difficulties Continue Reading
News 07 Aug 2023

Microsoft fixes Azure flaw that was subject of researcher criticism

Microsoft has confirmed a potentially-dangerous flaw in the Azure platform has now been fully fixed, and moved to reassure customers that despite criticism it is committed to responsible disclosure and timely fixes Continue Reading
News 07 Aug 2023

HPE’s Alletra MP marries storage to cloud and software-defined choices

HPE’s Alletra was launched in April with an architecture that ties in with GreenLake consumption purchasing, SaaS configuration and addition of software-defined storage services Continue Reading
News 04 Aug 2023

CCS urged to do more to make Cloud Compute 2 framework more accessible to SMEs

The government procurement chiefs at the Crown Commercial Service are coming under fire from the SME supplier community over accusations it could do more to make the £1.3 bn Cloud Compute 2 framework more accessible to smaller suppliers Continue Reading
News 04 Aug 2023

SAP called out by German user group for Rise U-turn

German SAP user group Deutschsprachige SAP-Anwendergruppe calls on SAP for clarity around on-premise S/4Hana product enhancements Continue Reading
News 04 Aug 2023

VMware Cloud on AWS expands to Melbourne cloud region

MLC Life Insurance is tapping the VMware Cloud on AWS service in the AWS Melbourne cloud region to exit its datacentre and reduce technology costs Continue Reading
News 04 Aug 2023

Amazon CEO cites enterprise shift in cloud spending priorities for upbeat Q2 results

After a succession of downbeat quarterly results, Amazon's Q2 figures suggest a return to form Continue Reading
News 04 Aug 2023

Biden’s SBOM mandate a ‘shot heard around the world’, report says

Two years and three months after Joe Biden mandated new standards in supply chain security, over 40% of UK respondents to a survey say they have implemented new SBOM policies in direct response Continue Reading
News 03 Aug 2023

Cozy Bear hijacks SME Microsoft 365 tenants in latest campaign

Microsoft shares intelligence on a newly observed Cozy Bear campaign that saw the APT take over genuine Microsoft 365 tenants and subvert them to try to phish its victims Continue Reading
News 03 Aug 2023

Microsoft attacked over ‘grossly irresponsible’ security practice

The CEO of Tenable has launched a scathing attack on Microsoft, asserting that the organisation is deliberately keeping its Azure cloud customers in the dark about dangerous vulnerabilities and accusing it of a culture of ‘toxic obfuscation’ Continue Reading
News 02 Aug 2023

Cubbit offers cut-price cloud with DS3 distributed storage

Cubbit’s DS3 offers cloud at up to 20% the cost of the main providers via on-premise software that builds a cloud with other users and targets unstructured data use cases such as backup Continue Reading
News 01 Aug 2023

Vast Data Platform aims at storage everywhere for AI/ML workloads

Vast Data to offer storage with data lake and warehouse functionality built in natively, in anticipation of a huge surge in AI/ML workloads and a need for ever-larger data stores Continue Reading
Definition 01 Aug 2023

Dell EMC VxRail

Dell EMC VxRail is a hyper-converged appliance. Like VSPEX Blue -- the Dell EMC product that it replaced -- and other hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) systems, VxRail includes compute, storage, networking and virtualization resources in a single device. Continue Reading
01 Aug 2023

The impact of generative AI on the datacentre

While artificial intelligence won’t live up to its name any time soon, mass adoption of large language models requires the attention of enterprise IT leaders. Continue Reading
E-Zine 01 Aug 2023

We’re doing AI all wrong

In this week’s Computer Weekly, AI is being imposed upon society from the top down and the socio-economic implications will cause problems – we talk to an expert who says there is a better way. We find out how hackers – the good kind – are turning to AI to make their work more effective. And we examine how generative AI will affect the datacentre. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
Opinion 31 Jul 2023

IT Sustainability Think Tank: Preparing the enterprise for tightening green regulations

There is an ever-growing list of rules and regulations for enterprises to get their heads around when it comes to sustainability, but what can they do to keep on top of things? Continue Reading
News 31 Jul 2023

SUSE takes aim at Red Hat in Linux, Kubernetes play

SUSE CEO Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen outlines strategy to capture the Kubernetes opportunity and offer enterprises an alternative to RHEL following Red Hat’s decision to limit access to RHEL source code Continue Reading
Blog Post 31 Jul 2023

Infrastructure-as-Code in 2023: What enterprises need to know

In this guest post, Tom Chisholm, principal training solutions engineer at IT automation software provider Puppet by Perforce, sets out what enterprise IT leaders need to know about ... Continue Reading
News 31 Jul 2023

G-Cloud 13 suppliers claim framework extension is making it ‘commercially unviable’ to sell through

Government procurement chiefs at the Crown Commercial Service are under fire for extending the life of the G-Cloud 13 framework and preventing suppliers from upping their prices as inflation bites Continue Reading