Server hardware

Servers are the workhorse of every IT infrastructure, and new developments are constantly delivering greater processor power, higher performance, more storage capacity and better energy efficiency. From mainframes to blade servers, we analyse the trends and technologies that matter in server hardware.

News 04 Jun 2024
Mad Max production company gets Dell PowerScale to leverage generative AI

One supplier enters, one supplier leaves: Australian film production company replaces HPE with Dell storage and compute as it leverages GenAI Continue Reading
Feature 29 May 2024
Storage technology explained: File, block and object storage

We ask the key questions about file, block and object storage: how they work on-premise and in the cloud, global file systems, and file and object locking Continue Reading

News 04 Jun 2024

Mad Max production company gets Dell PowerScale to leverage generative AI

One supplier enters, one supplier leaves: Australian film production company replaces HPE with Dell storage and compute as it leverages GenAI Continue Reading
Feature 29 May 2024

Storage technology explained: File, block and object storage

We ask the key questions about file, block and object storage: how they work on-premise and in the cloud, global file systems, and file and object locking Continue Reading
News 28 May 2024

Executive Interview: Why Dell wants to be your one-stop AI shop

At Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, artificial intelligence was the talk of the town as Dell staked out an all-encompassing strategy ahead of an anticipated goldrush. Dell’s Nick Brackney explains why the tech giant believes it's onto a winner Continue Reading
News 26 May 2024

Nutanix beefs up AHV hypervisor, doubles down on AI

Nutanix takes aim at VMware with enhancements to its AHV hypervisor along with tighter integrations with Nvidia and Hugging Face to simplify AI deployments Continue Reading
News 20 May 2024

Dell Technologies World: AI at core of Dell’s next chapter

With a significant anniversary just passed, Dell CEO Michael Dell was in reflective mood as he looked ahead to the impact of artificial intelligence on the tech giant’s product stack Continue Reading
News 20 May 2024

Toshiba shows 32TB HDDs with heat-assisted and shingled drives

Drive maker demonstrates 32TB and 31TB capacity hard drives that boost write density by use of heat and microwave assistance plus shingled – overlapped – drive tracks Continue Reading
Podcast 01 May 2024

Podcast: 32TB HDDs by 2029, but how much bigger can they get?

We talk to Rainer Kaese of Toshiba about the roadmap for conventional magnetic recording on hard disk drives, the roadmap to 32TB, and what it would take to get to 100TB or 200TB Continue Reading
Feature 11 Apr 2024

Storage technology explained: AI and data storage

In this guide, we examine the data storage needs of artificial intelligence, the demands it places on data storage, the suitability of cloud and object storage for AI, and key AI storage products Continue Reading
News 10 Apr 2024

Breakthrough may herald secure home quantum computing

An emerging approach to quantum security dubbed blind quantum computing may one day help spur mass adoption of quantum computing safely and securely, using technology that is already available today Continue Reading
Feature 05 Apr 2024

Seven ways to be sure you can restore from backup

Backups are no good if you can’t restore from them. We look at key elements of backup restoration, including backup audits, RPOs and RTOs, and how and when to test backups Continue Reading
Feature 02 Apr 2024

Storage technology explained: Flash vs HDD

In this guide, we examine the differences between flash storage and HDD, the rise of NVMe and much denser formats such as QLC, and whether or not flash will vanquish HDD in the all-flash datacentre Continue Reading
News 02 Apr 2024

Flash storage prices rise by 25% as manufacturers chase profitability

Analysis of 30,000-plus drive prices shows cost of flash drives per gigabyte rose sharply since October 2023, as memory manufacturers limit supplies and increase prices Continue Reading
Podcast 28 Mar 2024

Podcast: What is distributed cloud storage and what are its benefits?

We talk to Enrico Signoretti of Cubbit about how distributed cloud allows customers to control their data in hybrid and multicloud storage and the workloads the company targets Continue Reading
News 26 Mar 2024

Alletra MP hardware changes see HPE orient arrays towards AI

HPE doubles controller nodes, boosts capacity with denser drives, cuts caches and builds in 100Gbps links to bring denser, faster storage aimed at all parts of the AI/ML pipeline Continue Reading
News 26 Mar 2024

GTC 2024: Storage suppliers queue up to ride the Nvidia AI wave

Storage supplier announcements at Nvdia conference centre on infrastructure integration, tackling the GPU I/O bottleneck and AI hallucinations by running Nvidia NeMo and NIM microservices Continue Reading
News 19 Mar 2024

Vast targets AI checkpointing write performance with distributed RAID

AI checkpointing operations targeted by Vast Data as it touts QLC-based storage for AI workloads Continue Reading
News 15 Mar 2024

Global McDonalds IT outage result of third-party error

An IT outage that forced McDonald's to temporarily shutter thousands of restaurants has been blamed on a configuration error by a third-party supplier, but there is no suspicion of foul play Continue Reading
News 05 Mar 2024

AI-acceleration deployments curbed by datacentre design considerations

In addition to a shortage of GPUs for AI-optimised servers, IT leaders need to consider how well their datacentre power and cooling will cope with artificial intelligence workloads Continue Reading
Feature 01 Mar 2024

Pseudo-SLC flash storage: What is it, what’s it good for and what does it cost?

Pseudo-SLC takes MLC, TLC flash and changes data storage at cell level to get better endurance and performance, but it’s mostly aimed at edge applications and is costly Continue Reading
Feature 28 Feb 2024

Storage technology explained: Ransomware and storage and backup

We look at ransomware attacks, and the importance of good backup practice as well as immutable snapshots, air-gapping, network segmentation, AI anomaly detection and supplier warranties Continue Reading
Feature 28 Feb 2024

Broadcom’s VMware acquisition explained: The impact on your IT strategy

In this guide, we look at Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware and how it influences your IT desktop, server, cloud and supplier management strategies Continue Reading
News 26 Feb 2024

Storage and backup spend in 2024 targets risk and resilience

The TechTarget and ESG spending intentions survey finds big bias towards averting risk and building organisational resilience, but on-premise storage a significant planned outlay Continue Reading
Podcast 14 Feb 2024

Podcast: What is the impact of AI on storage and compliance?

Start now looking at artificial intelligence compliance. That’s the advice of Mathieu Gorge of Vigitrust, who says AI governance is still immature but firms should recognise the limits and still act Continue Reading
Podcast 13 Feb 2024

Podcast: What are snapshots? Can they replace backup?

We talk to Shawn Meyers, field CTO at Tintri, who defines snapshots, why they are no substitute for backups, and the effect on recovery of snapshot granularity Continue Reading
News 13 Feb 2024

What will result from Cohesity’s Veritas acquisition?

The $7bn backup giant will leverage huge assets in enterprise customer base, compliance and governance intelligence, AI, R&D, and Kubernetes backup and storage Continue Reading
News 31 Jan 2024

Singtel ropes in industry partners in datacentre push

Singtel inks partnerships with Nvidia, Gulf Energy, Medco and others in its efforts to grow its datacentre business and support AI adoption in Singapore and Southeast Asia Continue Reading
News 31 Jan 2024

Seagate uses HAMR to hit 30TB in Exos hard drives

HDD giant Seagate unveils 30TB Exos drives with higher areal density, aimed at hyperscaler customers, with products at 50TB promised for 2028 in its roadmap Continue Reading
News 30 Jan 2024

We need backup! Pennsylvania police data loss shows why

Police evidence systems data was lost during ‘routine maintenance’, with human error blamed – the case clearly illustrates why data protection can’t be left to chance Continue Reading
News 30 Jan 2024

Inside India’s supercomputing journey

India is looking to shore up its supercomputing capabilities, but more needs to be done to realise its ambition of becoming a world leader in the field Continue Reading
News 23 Jan 2024

NVM Express boosts computational storage standards

New command sets allow for computational storage with NVMe flash and includes frameworks to allow local memory usage in processing workloads on storage hardware Continue Reading
News 16 Jan 2024

AMD bets on India, doubles down on AI

The chipmaker recently inaugurated its largest global design facility in Bangalore as part of a $400m investment in India to support its expanded portfolio and build artificial intelligence capabilities Continue Reading
News 11 Jan 2024

QLC made gains but storage innovation focus was on software in 2023

Storage hardware innovation has taken a back seat – QLC flash excepted – as the big storage suppliers build around software-based variants and optimisation on modular product sets Continue Reading
Feature 02 Jan 2024

How to purchase the best server hardware for small businesses

Before buying a server, it's important to assess an SMB's needs. Review these seven steps outlining the factors an organization should consider before purchasing a server. Continue Reading
Answer 12 Dec 2023

Rack vs. blade server: What's the difference?

Components in a physical data center are held in rack servers or blade servers. Learn the differences, what type of environment you need and which server uses work best. Continue Reading
News 07 Dec 2023

CIO interview: Keith Woolley, chief digital information officer, University of Bristol

With Bristol set to host the UK’s biggest supercomputer, its technology chief is looking to make the most of internal and international collaboration to drive digital improvements Continue Reading
Blog Post 07 Dec 2023

AI: Killer app or planet killer

Looking at the latest quarterly earnings filings from the leading server makers shows they are all experiencing a significant boost in sales, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). HPE CEO, ... Continue Reading
News 06 Dec 2023

How a Node4 virtual datacentre proved better than MS cloud for mental health charity

Charity Together For Mental Wellbeing managed to migrate legacy servers into a new virtual environment and fix a major disaster recovery issue Continue Reading
Feature 05 Dec 2023

Dell EMC: Storage giant shifts gear to cloud operating models

Storage profile: We look at Dell EMC, the result of the biggest tech acquisition ever, and find a company well set for ubiquitous cloud operating models and as-a-service Continue Reading
News 22 Nov 2023

Nebulon upgrades SPU to Medusa2 with Nvidia DPU hardware

Nebulon aims to replace HCI with its OS on an offload card that it claims reduces server resource use by 25%. Medusa2 uses Nvidia DPU hardware and its own cloud control plane Continue Reading
E-Zine 21 Nov 2023

Can AI take education to a new level?

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we examine how large language models are being used to teach, support and assess students, enhancing education rather than impairing it. We look at how the AI revolution is impacting the semiconductor sector as the big tech companies put off server upgrades. And we find out how generative AI is changing the way enterprise software works. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
News 20 Nov 2023

IT not ready for AI, Pure Storage survey finds

Storage, compute and networking hardware won’t cope without upgrades, and that often means total IT infrastructure overhaul Continue Reading
Blog Post 17 Nov 2023

Do IT leaders need server upgrades?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the new Moore’s Law. Semiconductor manufacturers may strive to double processing power every two years, but that is not what their largest customers actually ... Continue Reading
Feature 15 Nov 2023

DPU 101: What are DPUs, what do they do, and who supplies them?

We look at data processing units, the latest in a line of hardware offload devices that emerged in the era of composable infrastructure. They come as hardware and even in the cloud Continue Reading
News 14 Nov 2023

Chip sector gears up for AI revolution

While Nvidia has established its AI dominance, Intel has been working on AI chips running on supercomputers Continue Reading
News 07 Nov 2023

VMware consolidates AI push at Explore in Barcelona

VMware’s vision is of ‘cloud smart’ enterprises that run on-premise, in multiclouds and in the ‘edge cloud’, with secure and compliant generative AI fuelling efficient business processes Continue Reading
Definition 03 Nov 2023

client-server network

A client-server network is a distributed communications architecture in which a centralized server receives and responds to requests for services and data from multiple clients. Continue Reading
News 26 Oct 2023

Facebook pins future on Quest 3 and AI development

Parent company Meta has focused on establishing Twitter rival Threads and its new augmented reality headset Quest 3 Continue Reading
News 23 Oct 2023

Dell updates PowerStore, PowerMax and PowerFlex storage

Dell storage upgrades include improved AIOps, lower energy usage, real-time HA failover, seamless hardware replacement, and enhancements to take advantage of DPU acceleration Continue Reading
Feature 20 Oct 2023

Five key questions about disaster recovery as a service

Disaster recovery as a service builds recovery data and systems into the cloud, accessible from anywhere. We look at the difference vs cloud backup, DRaaS use cases, the cost, and the firms that provide it Continue Reading
News 19 Oct 2023

How AWS is building a tech stack for generative AI

Olivier Klein, chief technologist for Asia-Pacific and Japan at Amazon Web Services, dives deeper into the technology stack the company has built to ease GenAI adoption Continue Reading
News 16 Oct 2023

Flash prices drop towards spinning disk levels in 2023

Number-crunching data on 17,000-plus drive prices shows cost of flash drives per gigabyte fell by around 10% in past six months while hard disk drive per-gigabyte prices stood still Continue Reading
Feature 04 Oct 2023

Will computational storage meet data processing demands?

Computational storage promises performance for workloads that can benefit from dedicated oomph, but it’s not a cure-all. It may come at a cost, and with added application complexity 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 25 Sep 2023

ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer)

ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was the world's first general-purpose electronic computer. 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

New revelations from the Snowden archive surface

A decade after Snowden exposed NSA’s mass surveillance in cooperation with the British GCHQ, only about 1% of the documents have been published – but three major facts can finally be revealed thanks to a doctoral thesis in applied cryptography by Jacob Appelbaum 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
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
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

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
News 23 Aug 2023

VMware works with Nvidia to deliver generative AI cloud

The two companies are collaborating on a platform that uses Nvidia GPUs and VMware cloud infrastructure 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 16 Aug 2023

ITAM influence on cyber risk becoming a factor in credit ratings

Credit agency S&P Global Ratings warns that organisations that pay inadequate attention to IT asset management as a factor in their cyber risk management processes may find their creditworthiness takes a dive 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
Podcast 08 Aug 2023

Podcast: HDDs have a long life ahead in certain workloads

Spinning disk hard drives are far from dead, and with data volumes set to explode, there are use cases that suit them well. That’s the view of Rainer Kaese of Toshiba in this podcast 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 11 Jul 2023

EU formally grants data adequacy to US

The European Commission has formally granted the US data adequacy, allowing companies and organisations to freely transfer personal data across the Atlantic via the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. But privacy activist Max Schrems has already committed to legally challenging the decision Continue Reading
Feature 29 Jun 2023

Software-defined storage: What’s available from key players

What’s available in software-defined storage from the big storage players, software-defined storage specialists, and SDS options focused on cloud, virtualisation and containers Continue Reading
Feature 28 Jun 2023

Hitachi Vantara: Small part of a big corp and analytics focus

We look at Hitachi Vantara, its storage, its cloud offer, the workloads it targets, and its efforts in containerisation and consumption models of storage purchasing Continue Reading
News 19 Jun 2023

Nakivo adds ransomware scanning and new restore options

Backup maker adds malware scanning with big names in security to immutable backup copy functionality. “Tape’s not dead” either, with restore from the venerable medium now possible Continue Reading
News 16 Jun 2023

Lenovo ups ante on AI infrastructure investments

Lenovo is investing $1bn over three years to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure offerings, including services to help organisations deploy and tap AI capabilities in a responsible manner Continue Reading
Feature 06 Jun 2023

Software-defined storage: What it is and variants available

SDS is available in numerous variants. It is usually cheaper, flexible to deploy and brings storage efficiencies, but there are pitfalls in complexity, management and performance Continue Reading
News 01 Jun 2023

DE-CIX switches on Internet Exchange in Finland

Comms tech provider celebrates 10 years of partnership with Internet Exchange operator and home to leading carrier and datacentre neutral interconnection ecosystem Continue Reading
News 25 May 2023

BASF ramps up petaflops with new Quriosity HPE-build hardware

The AMD-powered 3 petaflops supercomputer will offer BASF the ability to run more complex simulations of chemical processes Continue Reading
News 23 May 2023

Aston Martin gets F1 pole position with NetApp storage

AMF1 race team tracks hundreds of car sensor metrics for raceday and post-event analysis that has seen it surge forward in recent Formula One rankings with NetApp NVMe storage Continue Reading
News 17 May 2023

CTO interview: Europe benefits from energy gains in AMD chips

AMD’s chief technology officer explains how the latest chip technology can help European organisations solve the energy puzzle facing IT departments Continue Reading
Feature 12 May 2023

PLC flash: The next generation or a mirage?

PLC could be productised within two years, but chip makers might not think it worth the effort. Will managing multiple voltages be more hassle than adding layers to existing flash? Continue Reading
News 08 May 2023

How lab grown neurons could power the future of AI

Melbourne-based Cortical Labs’ lab grown neurons could speed up AI training in a more energy efficient way and its work has caught the eye of hyperscalers and Amazon’s CTO Continue Reading
News 02 May 2023

Seagate launches 22TB IronWolf straight into QNAP NAS partnership

Seagate’s 22TB IronWolf Pro HDD equals Western Digital for capacity. Of the big drive makers, only Toshiba now lags behind. QNAP NAS to offer petabyte capacities with new Seagate drive Continue Reading
Podcast 02 May 2023

Podcast: No more hard disks in five years, says Pure

We talk to Shawn Rosemarin of Pure Storage, who argues there will be no more hard drive sales in five years because energy costs and capacity needs can only be fulfilled by flash Continue Reading
News 04 Apr 2023

HPE launches GreenLake for File and Block, and unified arrays

HPE upgrades its storage-as-a-service offer with Greenlake for File and for Block, configurable via the cloud but deployable on-prem. Meanwhile it shows new Alletra MP arrays Continue Reading
Podcast 24 Mar 2023

IT sustainability: A Computer Weekly Downtime Upload podcast

We speak to Gartner’s Annette Zimmerman about the circular economy and IT sustainability Continue Reading
Feature 24 Mar 2023

HDD specs: Assess SATA vs SAS, sustained data rates and block size

In part two of a two-part series, we look at sustained data rates in hard disk drive specs, SATA versus SAS, drive security, and how HDD makers pack density into products by shingling Continue Reading
News 22 Mar 2023

Why Veeam thinks ransomware warranty payouts are unlikely

Veeam Data Platform v12 offers a financial guarantee to customers that can’t restore after ransomware attacks, but the backup supplier is convinced it won’t be making many payouts Continue Reading
Feature 21 Mar 2023

HDD specs: Assess MTTF, AFR and UER to get the drives you need

In part one of a two-part series, we look at key hard disk drive specs, including mean time to failure, annual failure rate and unrecoverable error rate, and how they relate to each other Continue Reading
E-Zine 21 Mar 2023

The risks of an imbalance in AI

In this week’s Computer Weekly, a leading AI expert explains the risks of an arms race in artificial intelligence caused by the domination of private sector providers. Our latest buyer’s guide examines ways to reduce IT’s energy use. And we analyse the latest damning revelations from the Post Office scandal inquiry. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
News 06 Mar 2023

How to get mainframe modernisation right

Around a third of mainframe modernisation efforts fail, but that doesn’t need to be the case if organisations can harness the best of mainframe and distributed architectures, according to Rocket Software Continue Reading
News 27 Feb 2023

How Dell is future-proofing its business

Dell Technologies is building a more resilient supply chain, investing in growth areas like edge and multicloud, and responding to shifts in consumption models to position itself for long-term growth Continue Reading
News 20 Feb 2023

Veeam bundles backup products into Veeam Data Platform

Backup and data protection specialist Veeam upgrades and rebrands, with a focus on the challenges of ransomware and rapid recovery, and a claimed 500 new functions Continue Reading
News 14 Feb 2023

Dell tells suppliers to diversify fab and backend facilities

Dell calls for chip suppliers to diversify their fabrication and backend facilities by the end of 2024 to improve its supply chain resilience Continue Reading
Definition 13 Feb 2023

cache server

A cache server is a dedicated network server or service acting as a server that saves webpages or other internet content locally. Continue Reading
News 08 Feb 2023

Rakuten targets big edge deployments with Symworld Cloud

Japanese giant Rakuten bought Kubernetes management platform Robin.io and put it in 50,000-plus telco antennas. Now it aims Symworld Cloud at enterprise edge deployments Continue Reading
Blog Post 07 Feb 2023

Running Out Of Energy...

Ironic, at a time when energy and oil companies are announcing record profits, the issue of energy – or a lack of it – is, or should be, a major concern for IT professionals, but seemngly isn't. ... Continue Reading
Feature 06 Feb 2023

Backup maintenance: Make sure backups can deliver

Deploying backup but overlooking the need to make sure it works is a common error. We look at the why and how of backup maintenance to help ensure you can recover from your backups Continue Reading
News 25 Jan 2023

Leeds Building Society uses AIops in Dynatrace to improve observability

Automation and AI is improving how the service delivery team assesses the business impact of an IT service degradation Continue Reading
Feature 24 Jan 2023

IT’s shift to the cloud: Veeam’s data protection report in detail

With half of servers in the cloud, most backup and nearly all disaster recovery cloud-centric, the shift to the cloud is significant – but container backup is one area that is yet to settle down Continue Reading
News 20 Jan 2023

DataCore software-defined storage helps car firm avoid breakdowns

Bontaz used to face regular IT outages that took too long to recover from. Then it got DataCore software-defined storage and the ability to rapidly recover from downtime Continue Reading
News 20 Jan 2023

Atempo plots course to containerised backup with S3 storage

Containerised modularised backup services will allow integration with third-party systems and backup storage unified onto S3 object storage for cost and analytics purposes Continue Reading
News 11 Jan 2023

Internet shutdowns cost global economy $24bn in 2022

Deliberate disruption of people’s access to the internet by governments is having a substantial economic impact and contributing to a range of human rights abuses, primarily against protestors Continue Reading